On Monday, the Supreme Court of India requested responses from the Centre, the Director General of Foreign Trade, and the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices regarding a public interest litigation (PIL) that calls for the fixation of minimum support prices (MSP) for crops. The petition, filed by farmers from Maharashtra, seeks to ensure that all farmers willing to sell their produce can do so at the MSP. The petitioners, represented by counsel Prashant Bhushan, argue that farmers are facing severe financial crises, often unable to sell their crops even at cost, which has led to distress and suicides among the farming community. The petition critiques the current method of calculating production costs, which only factors in actual input costs and a notional cost for family labor, thereby understating the true economic burden on farmers. The comprehensive cost of cultivation, or C2, includes additional factors such as rental values of owned and leased land and interest on working capital, which the government currently does not consider in its state-wise calculations.