Former Lok Sabha MP V Sobhanadreeswara Rao has moved the Supreme Court seeking implementation of a legally enforceable Minimum Support Price (MSP) for all notified agricultural crops based on the actual cost of cultivation plus 50 per cent profit margin formula as recommended by the Swaminathan Commission.The MS Swaminathan Commission Report (2006) recommended that the farmers should be paid their cost plus 50 per cent profit to ensure economic viability and guarantee meaningful profit margins for agricultural producers.Asking the Centre and others to respond to the petition, a Bench led by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant on Tuesday clubbed it with a similar matter already pending before the top court.Rao has also sought formulation of a time-bound debt relief mechanism, including a one-time waiver of crop loan dues of small and marginal farmers adversely affected by agrarian distress; and equitable and adequate access to institutional credit for them to reduce their dependence on private moneylenders.He also sought a direction to the Government to consider introducing a central law on the lines of the Kerala Farmers’ Debt Relief Commission Act.Rao wanted the top court to direct the authorities concerned to formulate a statutory framework in a time-bound manner to ensure that no agricultural produce was procured below the MSP.Other prayers in the PIL included, recognition and protection for tenant farmers; access to crop loans; insurance and welfare schemes by suitable amendment to the Model Agricultural Land Leasing Act; increase in allocation and effective implementation of schemes related to price support; procurement and market intervention, including PM-AASHA, PSS, MIS and PDPS; strengthening of agricultural marketing infrastructure and enhanced investment in irrigation infrastructure; time-bound completion of ongoing irrigation projects to reduce dependency on rain and minimise agrarian risks;  and immediate relief to distressed farmers, such as moratorium on recovery of agricultural loans in cases of crop failures and natural calamities.On April 13, the top court had asked the Centre, Directorate General of Foreign Trade and the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices to respond to a petition seeking to give weightage to states’ proposal on the exact cost of cultivation while fixing MSP.Petitioners Prakash Gopalrao Pohare, Purushottam Gawade and Vishal Omprakash Rawat – three farmers from Maharashtra—had sought a direction to the government to fix MSP at least at the weighted average cost of production (C2) and to ensure procurement of crops from farmers at that price.“Indian farmers are facing a terrible financial crisis because of being unable to sell their produce even at their actual cost of production. This has led to largescale suicides by farmers with over 17,000 farmers having committed suicide in Maharashtra alone in the last five years,” the petitioners had contended.They urged the court to direct the government to establish effective, accessible and functional procurement centres at every tehsil, block, village, and district across the country, and to put in place a transparent and uniform procurement mechanism ensuring assured procurement of all crops notified under the MSP regime, without confining effective procurement only to select crops or regions.They have sought a direction to states and union territories to waive all outstanding agricultural loans of farmers, in view of the alleged continuing failure of the MSP framework to ensure recovery of the cost of cultivation and the resultant agrarian distress.They also wanted the top court to direct the authorities to ensure complete procurement of notified crops under the MSP calculated on the basis of the exact cost of cultivation.