The Hindu : National : BJP wants debt waiver for farmers

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BJP wants debt waiver for farmers

Neena Vyas

Agriculture policy document soon

NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party has decided to bring out a full agriculture policy document it will adopt later. In the meantime, its National Council meeting here on Monday adopted a resolution calling for loan waiver for farmers who have borrowed up to Rs. 50,000 and loan migration for all who have borrowed at high interest rates from private money-lenders.

The eight-page resolution was moved by Venkaiah Naidu and adopted without any amendment by the Council delegates. The suggestions that came from the floor were in the nature of additions, not amendments. “These will be incorporated in an agriculture policy document that we will prepare,” Mr. Naidu told The Hindu.

Party president Rajnath Singh has emphasised the need for the BJP to take up farmers’ issues and has focussed on agriculture rather than general economic issues. In his opening speech to the Council on Monday he dwelt at length on some of the issues taken up by the resolution. He demanded immediate implementation of the report of the National Commission on Farmers after an all-party meeting.

Plight of farmers

The resolution focussed on the plight of farmers, especially and small and marginal farmers. Mr. Vinay Katiyar pointed out that industrialists often get big sops in the form of thousands of crores of rupees from the government. It was time that the government paid attention to farmers and write off their loans.

The resolution talked about the need for a higher minimum support price — it has demanded an MSP of Rs. 1,000 for paddy on par with that of wheat. It also said that the Land Acquisition Act of 1894 was being “misused by governments” and this should be immediately amended. Fertile land being forcibly acquired by the government was leading to chaotic situation such as in Nandigram.

If land were to be acquired farmers should be given a new permanent asset as a shareholder in the project that is to come up on their land. There was need to redefine “public purpose” for which land could be acquired.

The resolution criticised the United Progressive Alliance government for not doing enough for agriculture, pointing out that per capita food grain production had gone down; food was being imported as against full granaries under the Vajpayee government; the cold chain programme had not been implemented; godowns in every district had not come up; and the number of suicides among farmers was increasing.

The BJP warned of coming rice shortages and demanded “immediate” increase of land under paddy cultivation which could be done by announcing a higher minimum support price.

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