This assembly elections farmers in Mandsaur, the northwestern tip of Madhya Pradesh, aren’t too happy with the state government’s price offset scheme, the Bhavantar Bhugtan Yojana. They say they’d rather take the ‘bhav’ - market price - and not the ‘bhavantar’, or the difference between the market price and the price the farmers actually get.
Farmers say only rich farmers have benefitted from the Bhavantar Bhugtan Yojana while the small farmer is still struggling to make ends meet. Six farmers were killed by the police last year while they were protesting the lack of fair compensation for their produce.