I still remember watching elderly farmers sit through a freezing Delhi winter for over a year just to be heard on exactly this demand -- guaranteeing MSP as a legal right feels like the bare minimum acknowledgment of how much their labor and risk is worth.
Economists at institutions like NITI Aayog have noted that a universal legal MSP, if enforced on all crops, could cost the government several lakh crore rupees annually and risks distorting cropping patterns toward MSP-guaranteed crops like rice and wheat, worsening water stress in states like Punjab that already over-cultivate them.