A Season of Extremes: Why Assam’s Farmers Need a Special MSP

The water is back. In mid-September, fresh floods hit Assam. In Golaghat alone, more than 22,000 people are affected and two lives have been lost. The Dhansiri River near Bokakhat and the Dikhow River are flowing above danger levels. 

The Brahmaputra is also above warning in several places. In Jorhat, forecasts say the river will rise by another 30 to 55 centimetres by tomorrow night, and residents have been cautioned to stay away from the riverfront. Assam is used to a second wave of floods. What is different this year is the intense drought in July and August that followed the first flood and preceded the current one.

The first wave arrived in June. More than 5.6 lakh people across roughly 16 districts were affected. Eleven lives were lost. Floodwaters damaged standing crops across more than 12,000 hectares. Paddy, jute and pulses were submerged. Parts of Kaziranga went under and animals moved to higher ground. Households absorbed losses early in the season and hoped to recover in the main transplanting window.

The recovery never came. July and August turned dry. The rainfall deficit widened sharply. By late July, the deficit was about 44 per cent. By late August, 25 districts were officially listed as rainfall-deficient. South Salmara showed an extreme shortfall of nearly 90 per cent at one point. These are not minor gaps. These are sustained deficits during the transplanting window for paddy. Seedlings wilted. Tube wells failed. Ponds fell. Farmers stood in cracked fields and had to choose between transplanting into dry soil or waiting and risking the window.

The drought period exposed what, in my previous article Dry in the Land of Flood I called Assam’s irrigation paradox. The state relies on embankments and ad hoc water control. It does not provide reliable irrigation when the monsoon stalls. Fields end up either too wet or too dry, and rarely in balance with crop needs.

The government acknowledged the shortfall but did not act on the scale of the problem. The Chief Minister said the state would monitor the deficit and consider a drought declaration if conditions did not improve. He encouraged farmers to continue planting till August and suggested short-duration rice varieties like Bina 11. The Revenue and Disaster Management Minister, Keshab Mahanta, said the state had reached out to the Union government for support under disaster relief heads. The Agriculture Department has acknowledged that the rainfall deficit damaged the transplanting window and will likely reduce paddy output. No official statewide loss estimate has been published yet, but the acknowledgement itself matters. On the ground, cultivators saw time, seed, diesel and labour go to waste.

By mid-September, the water returned. Assam entered the familiar second wave. Fields that had been dry and cracked in August went under again. People who had lost time and inputs now face losses from standing water. In one season, Assam has gone through flood, drought, and flood again. This is not a headline cycle. It is a budgeting and livelihood problem for thousands of households.

What should the state do beyond relief kits and embankment patchwork? It should share the burden of this exceptional year in a direct and measurable way. A special Minimum Support Price for paddy is the most immediate lever.

Start with the yield baseline. Recent data puts Assam’s average rice yield around 2.2 tonnes per hectare—that is about 22.2 quintals per hectare. One hectare is roughly 7.475 bigha, so the average comes to about 3 quintals per bigha in normal conditions. Because no official projection exists yet, we can apply a simple scenario. If yield drops by 1 quintal per bigha, the average falls from 3 to 2 quintals. That is a 33.3 percent decline.

Now translate the scenario into income. With the Union MSP at Rs. 2,369 per quintal, a normal yield of 3 quintals per bigha generates Rs. 7,100 gross income per bigha. If yield falls to 2 quintals, gross income drops to Rs. 4,738. That is a loss of Rs. 2,369 per bigha. If the government declares a special MSP top-up of Rs. 1,000 per quintal of paddy, raising the price to Rs. 3,369 per quintal, then gross income at 2 quintals becomes Rs. 6,738. The gap with a normal year shrinks to Rs. 369. The buffer will not make a farmer whole in deep loss zones, but it brings moderate loss cases close to normal income and reduces distress sales.

Look at the state level. The Chief Minister had set a procurement target of 5.85 lakh MT for 2024–25; the state surpassed it, procuring 6.97 lakh MT and, by September, crossing 8.02 lakh MT across cycles. One metric tonne is 10 quintals, which translates into 70 to 80 lakh quintals. A special MSP top-up of Rs. 1,000 per quintal on top of the central price would cost Rs. 700 to 800 crore. This is significant but manageable. Compare this with known project bills in Guwahati. The Maligaon flyover cost about Rs. 421 crore. The Noonmati–Ambari (Bamunimaidan–Dighalipukhuri) flyover is estimated at about Rs. 852 to 888 crore. The MSP top-up proposal sits below the larger of the two and in the same fiscal band as a single urban flyover.

The Government of Assam has itself set out the economic rationale. Ministers have said again and again that welfare schemes are justified because they increase the purchasing power of the poor. In 2025, as Chief Minister, he claimed that “our government has bestowed purchasing power upon 40 lakh citizens through beneficiary schemes, establishing a paradigm for other states.” Orunodoi is the flagship of this logic. It has an annual budget of about Rs. 5,604 crore and provides monthly cash to more than 37 lakh households. That money boosts household consumption and local markets.

On this logic, a higher MSP is even more justified. It is productive welfare. It protects cultivation and puts income into village markets. It raises purchasing power not by handing out cash alone, but by securing farm prices and stabilising production. At current procurement volumes, a permanent top-up of Rs. 1,000 to Rs. 1,250 per quintal would cost about Rs. 700 to 1,000 crore a year—only one-sixth of what Assam spends on Orunodoi. If Orunodoi-level consumption support can be funded, so can a production-linked income floor which strengthens both farm viability and rural demand. Kerala and Chhattisgarh provide precedents: Kerala gives state incentive bonuses of Rs. 520 to Rs. 780 per quintal, and Chhattisgarh has procured paddy at Rs. 3,100 per quintal—nearly Rs. 900 above the national MSP. If these states can bear the fiscal burden, Assam can too—especially in a year of extremes.

The numbers speak for themselves. Assam already spends far more each year on cash transfers and even on single flyovers than on a production-linked MSP top-up that strengthens the rural economy.

What must be done now. For this exceptional year, the Government of Assam should declare immediate relief through a special MSP top-up of Rs. 1,000 per quintal of paddy. Furthermore, it must begin the work of instituting a permanent price support mechanism to shield farmers from the increasingly predictable shocks of climate-driven extremes. The cost for this season’s relief is Rs. 700 to 800 crore at the state’s procurement volumes of 6.97–8.02 lakh MT—a manageable sum that demonstrates a commitment to those who feed the state.

Assam’s farmers have carried the cost of a season of extremes. A special MSP is the fairest way for the state to carry its share—and to prove that agriculture, not only flyovers, is worth investing in.

About the Author

Bonojit Hussain is a full-time farmer and an independent researcher based in Baridatara village, Nalbari district, Assam.

Also Read: Dry in the Land of Floods: Assam’s Irrigation Paradox & Colonial Legacy