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Ruchika M Khanna
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, February 1
The announcement of Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi for assured income support to farmers has failed to enthuse farmers and agro economists in Punjab.
The amount of assured income — Rs 6,000 per annum — is too little, and too late in the day, for the BJP to woo farmers back in their political fold, they say.
Punjab is among the worst-affected states because of high rural indebtedness, with the institutional loan availed by farmers pegged at Rs 80,000 crore and non-institutional loan pegged at Rs 20,000 crore.
Farmer suicides, rising input costs and shrinking landholdings — all contribute to farming becoming economically unviable.
Though the Congress government in the state brought a crop loan waiver scheme for small and marginal farmers, it has touched a small percentage of debt-affected households.
Though the finer blueprint of the scheme announced in Budget proposals of the Modi government today is yet to come, farmers in Punjab say money is too less to mitigate the rising input costs in farming.
Darshan Singh, a marginal farmer from Buladhewala village in Bathinda, said the amount announced was just peanuts.
“It will be enough if we get the right price for our crops. I have just two acres and we are not even able to make both ends meet. We do not need doles, just the right price for our produce,” he added.
Nahar Singh of the same village said had the direct income support been announced two-three years earlier, the farmers would have benefitted and not doubted the intentions of the government. “It has been announced on the eve of the elections to woo the farmer community for political gains,” he said.
Eminent agro-economist RS Ghuman said 85 per cent of the farmers had small (upto 5 acres) and marginal (upto 2.5 acres) landholdings.
“The amount to be directly transferred to the accounts of farmers is just pittance as compared to the extent of farm crisis. The government should have realised that farm distress is not confined to just their low income. It is much beyond that and needs non-farm employment generation of surplus farmers and farm labourers. What will make an impact is the change in the entire farm ecosystem,” he said.
Gurnam Singh, a marginal farmer of Jodhpur village in Tarn Taran, however, welcomed the move and said it would help them meet the increase in prices of diesel.
“Farmers are facing the worst-ever crisis. But I had hoped that the government would do more for the farmer community than just Rs 6,000 per annum direct subsidy,” he added.
LEADER SPEAK
The Union Budget is nothing but a mere political gimmick to lure gullible people ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. The sole objective of the Budget is to entrap people by offering them small sops. — Bhagwant Mann, AAP Punjab Unit President
The last interim Budget of the BJP is visionless and disappointing. In the last four and a half years, the BJP government has only harassed the farmers and made them suffer. — Kewal Dhillon, Vice-President, PPCC
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