Assess whether PM-AASHA's Price Support Scheme can achieve self-sufficiency in pulses and oilseeds, given its procurement cap and the fact that it depends on States asking for it.

India imported 56.25% of its edible oil in 2023-24 [1], and pulses are still sensitive to imports. Under PM-AASHA, the Price Support Scheme (PSS) buys notified pulses, oilseeds and copra at MSP when market prices fall below it [2]. PSS is a needed safety net. However, its design means it cannot deliver self-sufficiency on its own.

How PSS helps self-sufficiency

• Price signal: RMS 2027-28 raised the MSP for mustard by ₹413 and for lentil by ₹390. Wheat rose by only ₹25. The aim is to shift farmland towards the crops India is short of [3].
• Assured buyer: NAFED and NCCF buy from farmers who registered in advance. Registration and payment run digitally on e-Samriddhi and e-Samyukti [4].
• Flexibility for pulses: the procurement ceiling was lifted for tur, urad and masur [5].

Structural limits

• Procurement cap: central buying under PSS is capped at 25% of production [5][6]. So even when prices crash, about three-quarters of the crop has no buyer at MSP.
• Depends on States asking: PSS starts only when a State or UT requests it [2]. Coverage therefore depends on how able and willing each State is, and farmers in States that do little procurement are left exposed.
• Thin reach: even for wheat and paddy, the Shanta Kumar Committee found that only about 6% of farmers sold to procurement agencies. Eastern States were the worst served [7]. Buying networks for pulses and oilseeds are thinner still.
• Risk asymmetry: FCI buys wheat without any limit. So a farmer may still find wheat safer than mustard, which pays more but may find no buyer.
• Price is not productivity: PSS does nothing for seeds, yields or processing. That is why the National Mission on Edible Oils–Oilseeds (₹10,103 crore, 2024-31) works on the production side and aims to meet about 72% of demand from domestic output [8].

Assessment and way forward PSS reduces distress sales, but only partly and unevenly. It sets a price floor; it does not drive self-sufficiency.

• Widen the Price Deficiency Payment Scheme (PDPS), which pays farmers the gap between MSP and the market price [6]. Because the government does not have to store grain, the 25% cap matters less.
• Build procurement centres in the eastern States, as the Shanta Kumar Committee recommended [7].
• Link oilseed MSPs to assured buying in the main producing States.

Self-sufficiency needs PSS as a price floor, together with PDPS, production missions and stronger State procurement. Joint Centre-State effort in the spirit of cooperative federalism can turn price signals into assured incomes. That would advance SDG 2 and the goal of Aatmanirbharta in pulses and edible oils.