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Centre’s intervention to raise food production demanded

CHANDIGARH: Expressing concern over the precarious food security situation in the country, Indian National Lok Dal senior leader and former Haryana Finance Minister Sampat Singh on Tuesday demanded that the Central Government make an immediate intervention, implement the Swaminathan Report and establish Special Agricultural Zones (SAZs) to increase food production.

Talking to the media here, Mr. Sampat Singh expressed concern that food grain production had not increased in proportion to the rising population which had raised the ``spectre of massive food shortages”. While admitting that this had become a global threat, he alleged that at the domestic level, thanks to faulty policies of the United Progressive Alliance government at the Centre, the producing farmer and the common consumer were both suffering.

To highlight this and to demand implementation of the Swaminathan Report, the INLD would participate in the joint demonstration by the UNPA (United Progressive Alliance) and the Left parties in Delhi on April 19 to submit a memorandum to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Mr. Sampat Singh said misplaced priorities and farmer-inimical policies had resulted in ``reducing the area of cultivable land and production, increasing prices for the consumers but not for the farmers” which had undermined the food security of the country.

While the cost of production was steadily increasing, the farmers were not even getting their investment in crops back and the consumers were being made to pay through their noses, he added.

Though the price of wheat in the international market varied from Rs.1,700 to 2,500 per quintal, the Centre continued to fix Rs.1,000 per quintal for the domestic producers even while importing at the rates prevailing in the international market.

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