Farm unions give a thumbs down, say none can be trusted

Chandigarh

The Punjab Government has waived farm debt totalling Rs 4,000 crore and has announced to bail out landless agricultural labourers. Yet farm suicides continue. Even as the state government  has failed to do much, the Centre too has dithered on minimum support price (MSP) factoring in the increasing input costs.

A couple of months ago, Union Minister for Food and Public Distribution Ram Vilas Paswan asked the Punjab Government to do away with arhtiya system. The proposal was spurned. So was a report by State Farmers’ Commission recommending that free power to rich farmers (with over 9.88 acres) be stopped.

Experts say the government in the past two years has initiated temporary measures and has failed to address the fundamental issues leading to agriculture distress.

“Even debt waiver is a temporary measure. The state can’t come out of the crisis until it generates employment outside agriculture, or the income of farmers is increased and the rural credit system made fair,” says Prof Gian Singh of Punjabi University, Patiala.

“The government is bent upon protecting the interests of rich farmers and money-lenders,” claims Darshan Pal, president, Krantikari Kisan Union. Condemning all parties, Sukhdev Kokri of the BKU (Ugrahan) says: “We have no option but to resort to a struggle. We expect nothing from political parties.”

Comments

comments