For common grades of rice, the government has fixed the support price at 1,815 rupees ($26.34) per 100 kg, Narendra Singh Tomar told a news conference.

The government announces the so-called minimum support prices (MSPs) for 22 crops to set a benchmark.

But state agencies buy limited quantities of staples such as rice and wheat at those prices, restricting benefits of guaranteed prices to only around 7 percent of the country's 263 million farmers, according to various studies.