Introduction of Direct Targeted Subsidies and Income incentive is only way to tackles Indian Agrarian Crisis - Kishore Tiwari
Date -31st Jan 2018
Kishore Tiwari ,Veteran farm activist and chairman of farm task force (LATE VASANTRAO NAIK SHETI SWAVALAMBAN MISSION (VNSSM) who is Maharashtra state panel to tackle agrarian crisis has urged finance minister Arun Jaitly that the era globalization and free market economy has fueled farm distress and economic crisis in the farm-suicide affected region where dry-land farmers finding difficult to compete with global market prices and poor market intervention has increased the urgent need of introduction of direct targeted subsidies and cash incentives in the from of labor wages under MGNREGA or export incentive and heady import restriction to save by inserting "Agriculture" be inserted in the Concurrent List of the Constitution.
State is always painting rosy picture of agrarian economy and all so-called farmercentric much hyped budget failed to give any benefit to dying farmers as no systematic institutional and organizational planning is involved in cultivation, irrigation, harvesting etc. Institutional finances are not adequately available and minimum purchase price fixed by the government do not reach the poorest farmer. Middlemen and economic exploitation of farmers is the reason put forth for not getting the best price for the produce of the agriculturists. The government should promote the plan Farmers Market, where the farmers can directly sell their products at reasonable price to the consumers, Tiwari asked.
Tiwari added that Maharashtra is state which is started working on cores issues raised in NCF report related to the areas land, water, bio-resources, credit and insurance, technology and knowledge management, and markets aggressively as part your National plan and programme but the ground reality is that Government programs do not reach small and needy farmers ,this year Maharashtra government has implemented mega agricultural debt. Waiver and debt. Relief scheme to benefit over 6 million farmers but as Maharashtra government has no direct control over hostile functioning PSU banks always failed to give timely and sufficient credit to needy and debt rapped farmers.
on the prevailing agrarian distress and crisis ,Tiwari added that This is the fact that the major causes of the agrarian crisis are due to unfinished agenda in land reform, quantity and quality of water, technology fatigue, access, adequacy and timeliness of institutional credit, and opportunities for assured and remunerative marketing. Adverse meteorological factors add to these problems .
Task force chief says that Maharashtra has given mega farm loan waivers though it was temporarily necessary for the revival of farming but as there is no legitimate binding for PUS banks to create a secure credit system in the long term. The waiver of loans implies that banks will have to be compensated by the government for the amount involved. This means that large sums of money, which could have otherwise gone to strengthen the agricultural infrastructure and research - such as seed production, soil health enhancement and plant protection, will not be available which has started showing its impact. in order to mitigate the present agrarian crisis National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme can provide social protection to landless farmers but significant achievements in this area is till awaited similarly Special efforts are also being made to promote market-driven skills for rural women who contribute to about 50 percent of the agricultural work but there is no serious impact at ground thanks to the poor involvement of the agricultural universities and the private sector, Tiwari added.
