Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today pleaded the Union government to present a separate Agriculture Budget like the Railway Budget, as 55% of the nation's population was dependent on agriculture.In his key note address during the ‘Kisan Sammellan’ on the inaugural day of four day Progressive Punjab Agriculture Summit (PPAS) from February 16-19 here at New Vegetable and Fruit market, the Chief Minister said that the core sector of agriculture has been blatantly ignored by the centre thereby disenchanting majority of farmers across the country. He lamented that due to apathetic attitude of the Centre towards peasantry over 1 lakh farmers have left farming and joined other vocations during last one decade in Punjab alone and the Union government must come out with pro-farmer policies to motivate them otherwise this discriminatory approach could endanger the country’s food security besides creating a major law and order problem and even anarchy.
Highlighting the importance of agriculture summit, the Chief Minister said that it was a non political event with a focus on the crisis engulfing the peasantry and farm labour in our country today and to find viable solution for it. He said that predominantly an agricultural country with nearly 70% of our population directly or indirectly dependent on agriculture for livelihood. There was a time when India faced an alarming food crisis and millions of people faced starvation everyday at that time, India had to depend heavily for food on foreign aid. Mr. Badal felicitated the hard working and resilient farmers especially from Punjab who took up the daunting challenge and turned India from food deficit to food surplus country.
Batting for the beleaguered peasantry, the Chief Minister asked the centre to immediately introduce life and crop insurance scheme for the Farm labour and the farmers. He also advocated that the existing norms of Calamity Relief Fund should also be amended to provide full compensation for the loss of all crops including horticulture as well as live stock. Similarly to boost the persification of agriculture and encourage the farmers for allied farming activities, Mr. Badal urged the Government of India (GoI) to exempt Live-stock sector from income tax and regard this sector at par with agriculture for this purpose.
Likewise, the Chief Minister also demanded that Irrigation Plan must be raised upwards and must include maintenance of the entire system from canals to field channels in the state, because it not only resulted in huge wastage of water but also caused the problem of water logging. Emphasising on the need for complete overhauling of the central policies on agriculture in consultation with the States and farmers association, Mr. Badal said that these policies must include government spending on agriculture, irrigation and Agriculture research, providing remunerative MSP for all crops and their assured marketing, agro-processing and specific programmes for small and marginal farmers. He demanded that the investments by GoI in agriculture must be raised to at least 10% of Plan expenditure.
Referring to the absence of assured marketing for most of the farm produce and plight of farmers forthwith, the Chief Minister said that the GoI had declared Minimum Support Price for 24 crops but this promise was fulfilled only for two crops – wheat and paddy. He said that Agricultural marketing infrastructure was weak in most states as there was no central assistance to build this infrastructure, and the progress made by a few states like Punjab was through their own efforts. Mr. Badal further lamented that there was a serious mismatch between the prices of inputs and produce as the costs of inputs like diesel, fertilizers etc, have been rising constantly whereas prices of farmers' produce have not increased accordingly thereby rendering farming totally un-remunerative and unproductive.
The Chief Minister bemoaned that the share of agriculture in national income has also been falling while the percentage of people dependant on agriculture has remained the same. Corroborating his claim, he said that in 1965-66, 65% of the population was dependent on agriculture and it contributed 65% of the GDP but in 2011-12, 55% of the population was still dependent on agriculture but their contribution to GDP had dipped considerably to 27% resulting thereby the farmers and farm labours were becoming poorer day-by-day.Dwelling on the issue of stagnated MSP, the Chief Minister impressed upon Centre to take into account all the costs incurred by farmers adding that farmers own labour must be counted as skilled labour as he has acquired these special farming skills over generations. He said that actual rent of land, cost of water and electric power should be included in the total input costs of farmers while determining MSP. Underscoring the need to immediately implement the formula of noted agri economist Dr MS Swaminathan, Mr. Badal said that the centre should fix the MSP on the basis of agriculture cost plus 50% as profit.
Realising the pathetic economic position of the farmers, the Chief Minister pleaded that short term credit should be given to the farmer at 4% and this rate should be further slashed to 2% for Farmers owning one acre or less land. Long term finance for capital investment should be made available at 6%, he added. Outlining the scenario of agriculture persification in the present context, the Chief Minister said that the persification could succeed only if there was focus on allied activities like Dairying, Piggery, Fishery, Apiary and goatery besides assuring marketing plus remunerative MSP for all alternative crops. He said that a special persification programme for Green revolution states should be started immediately as a part of the Five Year Plan on the lines of Bringing Green Revolution to Eastern India. Likewise Mr. Badal said that food processing should be promoted through encouragement to agro-based industries by credit availability at 6% and heavy capital subsidy. He also asked the Centre to increase the allocation for agricultural research as future growth depends upon new technology and raise the expenditure on agricultural research to 2% of the Agricultural GDP.
Justifying the rationale behind Agriculture subsidies, the Chief Minister said that even the farming was highly subsidized in advanced countries like Canada and the US and this model should also be replicated in India too. He said that the capital investments in agriculture for mechanization and adoption of technology should be liberally subsidized. To bail out the distressed peasantry across the state, the Punjab government was helping the farmers by paying their power bills which amount to nearly 5000 crore annually. In his welcome address, Deputy Chief Minister Mr. Sukhbir Singh Badal gave a call that all states should come forward on a common platform and launch a unified move to mount pressure upon Union Government to save the farming sector facing enormous crisis. Emphasising the need to make farming and allied sector a profitable profession, Deputy CM said the Union Government should formulate exclusive budgetary provisions to compensate the farmers facing natural calamities since the existing compensation mechanism was not suitable. The disaster relief being provided by the centre to the affected farmers was not equivalent with the prices of agri-inputs.
He exhorted the delegates and agri-experts to prepare a detailed report on the issues and problems of farming community during various sessions in the summit to apprise the Union Government regarding present agri-scenario of country. He said the day-by-day worsening conditions of farming community were the outcome of center's apathetic attitude towards the agriculture sector and farming has become an unprofitable business. This reverse trend was mainly due to the centre’s regressive and anti-farmer policies, which has rendered the farming a non remunerative profession pushing the farmers to commit suicides. He blamed the center for not paying requisite heed to the farmers and asked to revise the procedure for fixing the MSP as it must be linked with the consumer price index to benefit the farming sector.
The Deputy Chief Minister said that the state government has taken landmark initiatives to boost the farming and Punjab was the only state in the country to give free power to the farmers besides excellent marketing network across the state to ensure hassle free procurement of their produce. Apprehending a trend of shunning agriculture profession in view of squeezed margins due to non remunerative MSP in the near future, he asked the centre to do something tangible otherwise it could lead a situation of food crisis. Mr. Sukhbir Singh Badal asked the Agriculture dominated states present in the summit to come forward to impress upon on the centre to ensure remunerative MSP, Crop Insurance and upward revision of compensation to the farmers in wake of natural disaster besides granting agriculture infra structure fund to bear the cost of upgradation of dilapidated infra structure. He cited an example of century old canal system which was now in dire need of rejuvenation at a cost of Rs 3500 crore and state alone was not all in a position to fund this project on its own, here centre’s support and intervention was needed to give impetus to the sagging agrarian economy.
Earlier the Chief Minister honoured Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mr. Shivraj Chauhan, Chattisgarh Chief Minister Dr. Raman Singh, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mr. Akhilesh Yadav, Agriculture Minister Pakistan Punjab Dr. Farooq Javed, Agriculture Ministers of Bihar, Gujarat and West Bengal, former Chief Minister Andhra Pradesh Mr. Chandra Babu Naidu, state President Rajasthan BJP Mr. Ashok Parnami, former Union Minister Mr. Som Pal Singh Shastri, Agri-experts Dr. Gurdev Singh Khush, Dr GS Kalkat, Director General Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR) New Delhi Dr. S. Ayyappan and Director General International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre USA Dr. Thomas Lumpkin.Editor in Chief of Tribune Mr. Raj Chengappa, Managing Director and Editor in chief Daily Post Mr. Manish Tiwari and Resident Editor Indian Express Mr Vipan Pubby also graced the occasion. Prominent amongst other present on the occasion included Chief Secretary Mr. Rakesh Singh, Financial Commissioner Development Mr. Suresh Kumar, Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Mr. SJK Sandhu, Special Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Mr. Gaggandip Singh Brar, Advisor to Chief Minister on National Affairs and Media Mr. Harcharan Bains, Media Advisor to Deputy Chief minister Mr. Jangveer Singh, Director Information and Public relations Mr. Ashwani Kumar besides members Rajya Sabha Mr. Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa and Mr. Balwinder Singh Bhunder, state BJP President Mr. Kamal Sharma and several Cabinet Ministers, Chief Parliamentary Secretaries and MLAs.