New Delhi: Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala on Thursday attacked the BJP government, alleging that even though farmers continue to suffer from higher input costs such as that for fertilisers, it gave nothing to the farm sector in the interim budget. Participating in a debate on the interim budget in the Rajya Sabha, he also charged that the government has failed in fulfilling its promise of doubling farmers' income by 2022.
He also sought to now why the government has not yet brought a law to give guaranteed minimum support price (MSP) to farmers. Citing National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data, the Congress leader said more than one lakh farmers have committed suicide since 2014 but the government is not seeing the pain of farmers.
"The budget and appropriation bill do not have anything for hardworking people and farmers," Surjewala said. In 2016, he said, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promised to double farmers' income by 2022. "Income has not doubled, but pain has increased 100 times," Surjewala quipped. In the 2014 Lok Sabha election campaign, Modi had promised that MSP will be fixed at 50 per cent over and above the cost of the production, Surjewala said.
The government in February 2015 gave an affidavit in the Supreme Court saying that MSP could not be determined on the basis of cost of production plus profit as it will distort the market, he added. Surjewala again uoted NCRB data to say that between 2014 and 2021, 1,00,474 farmers and land labourers were forced to commit suicide. Why did the government not listen to the pain of farmers, he asked.
Acoording to the latest NCRB data for 2022, Surjewala said 11,290 farmers and land labourers committed suicide. "It means a farmer is committing suicide every hour. Why is the government is not giving attention and taking cognisance of this matter," he asked. Citing an NSSO report, he claimed that daily income of each farmer is only Rs 27 while average debt is Rs 27,000 per farmer.
The Congress leader said the government was not waiving loans of farmers, but has written-off loans worth Rs 19.34 lakh crore of defaulters of bank loans.
On the PM-KISAN scheme, under which Rs 6,000 is being given to farmers directly into their bank accounts, Surjewala said the government gave benefit to eight crore beneficiaries in the latest 15th installment, while there are 14.64 crore farmers in the country according to the agriculture census.
The allocation for PM-KISAN has also been reduced to Rs 60,000 crore for 2024-25 from Rs 75,000 crore in 2020-21, he alleged. Surjewala also criticised the government for not spending about Rs 1 lakh crore from the total budget allocation for the agriculture sector in the last five years. The Congress leader also attacked the government for not enacting a law providing MSP guarantee as demanded by the farming community. The government is not buying enough grain at MSP and now MSP means 'Maximum Suffering for Producers', he said.
Talking about the interim budget, he charged that fertiliser subsidy has been reduced by around Rs 25,000 crore for the next financial year. He said the rates of DAP have gone up to Rs 1,350 per bag from Rs 1,200 per bag. The size of urea bag has been reduced to 45 kg from 50 kg. The rates of potash have increased to Rs 850 per bag from Rs 450 per bag in the last 10 years, Surjewala claimed.
Surjewala also pointed out that the government has imposed GST on fertilisers, pesticides and tractors. Crop insurance scheme PMFBY has become a profitable scheme for private insurance firms and the total premium collected was Rs 1.59 lakh crore between kharif 2016 to kharif 2022, while the claim disbursed was Rs 1.19 lakh crore in the same period, the MP said.
