Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Member Parliament Lok Sabha from Bathinda today in the Lok Sabha asked the government to explain whether its department FCI has the capacity to carry out the job of 22000 Commission Agents if the government wants to pay directly to the farmers? Stressing the need to change the existing system of paying through Commission Agents only when the government was going to put in place a better system, she said, “the government should not indulge into making new systems which facilitate more corruption and provide better opportunity for more corruption”.
Replying to the question the Minister for Food, Public Distribution System and Consumer Affairs, Prof. K.V.Thomas has said that the government was in fact trying to pay directly to the farmers and procure directly from the farmers. While defending both farmers of Punjab and the system of Commission Agents, Harsimrat Badal said that FCI was one of the most corrupt organizations in India and FCI has got corruption institutionalized into its system and she demanded instead of ending the livelihood of the Commission Agents and their workforce which would in turn mean increased harassment to the farmers at the hands of corrupt FCI officials, she appealed to the Minister stop corruption in the FCI. “Agriculture being the backbone of my state and we have been providing over half the country’s food requirements for decades and we have spent thousands of crores and established an infrastructure in the mandis to handle the huge operations of procurement of 112 lakh MT of wheat and 140 lakh MT of paddy which is lifted in one month’s
operations for each crop” she said. While questioning the system of dispensing with the Commission Agents, she mentioned how would 500 FCI inspector do the job done by 22000 Commission Agents who procure grains from 15 lakh farmers, and how would few FCI officials pay cheques to the farmers, do they have paraphernalia to carry out that
job. She said that an FCI Inspector who otherwise does not prepare 50 cheques a day how would that official prepare 5000 cheques a day. This would tend to further harass the farmer as he would not be paid for months together. She also question the government’s intention to do away the middlemen 2.5% commission being paid to the Commission Agents by the FCI, and said that if the government wishes to ensure that farmer is paid well then why does not the government raise MSP and calculate it on scientific grounds on actual input costs plus 50% profits as suggested
by Dr. Swaminathan Committee. She said that cost of Urea has gone up by 80% in last six months, cost of Potash has gone up by 50%, cost of diesel and other items have also gone up by 50%, but the rise in MSP that the government propose every year is merely 5%.
The House Members across party line supporting the stand of Harsimrat Badal and hon’ble Speaker Meira Kumar making frentic efforts to calm down the Members.