‘Reforms key to lift farmer income’
The government has announced measures to unshackle agriculture markets and provide alternative selling channels to farmers. Agriculture and Rural Development Minister
NARENDRA SINGH TOMAR tells Sanjeeb Mukherjee that states will not oppose the reforms, given that nobody wishes to harm the interests of their growers. Edited excerpts:
Won’t the proposal to have a central law to enable barrier-free interstate trade in agricultural commodities infringe a state’s jurisdiction and lead to friction?
The question here is not of encroaching on a state’s jurisdiction but of ensuring farmers’ welfare. Today, farmers produce their goods, invest capital, apply hard labour, and are subject to the vagaries of nature. But they are perhaps the only producers who neither decide the price of their produce nor sell it to the buyer of their choice. Moreover, they are tied to all sorts of rules and regulations.
If you take any other business, the producer is free to produce his goods, sell to whoever he wants, and at any place of his choice. Therefore, these big reforms were badly needed for boosting farmer income. I don’t think there will be any state which will want to harm farmers’ interests.
How do you plan to ensure implementation — through an ordinance or will they be taken up in Parliament?
The announcements have been made and we will frame the laws. Thereafter the Union Cabinet and Prime Minister Narendra Modi will decide how these will be implemented — through ordinance or via Parliament.
How will this contract farming legislation work? Isn’t a model Act already in place? How will the new legislation be different?
As far as contract farming is concerned, we already have a model Act framed by NITI Aayog which has been circulated to the states. We will look to turn the same model Act into a central legislation.
Don’t you think in these times a more appropriate solution would have been some sort of direct support to farmers because all these reforms are designed to give them benefits in the long run?
I think the biggest direct support that anyone could think of for farmers is Pm-kisan announced by the Prime Minister sometime back.
We have disbursed almost ~71,000 crore to farmers through Pm-kisan in the past one year. Who can give more than this to farmers? During the lockdown period, almost ~19,000 crore has been transferred to farmers’ bank accounts. You see, the big question is how long can you keep farmers dependent on grants and aid? They need to be provided support to become self-reliant instead of being dependent on the government.
“THE GOAL IS TO FREE FARMERS TO MAKE THEIR OWN DECISIONS AND REDUCE THEIR DEPENDENCE ON THE STATE”
After Thursday’s reforms, many are saying you are pushing towards corporatisation of Indian agriculture. How do you respond?
I don’t think this is a correct assessment of our measures. Our simple objective is to make the farmer prosperous; he is the backbone of the country. The objective is to remove the hurdles and gaps in farming, so that our farmers can sell their goods at the right price. The steps announced in the last few days will enable all of these.
Weren’t a lot of these measures announced in Budget 2020-21 and even earlier?
Yes, some of these announcements might have been part of the Budget, but then funds weren’t allocated to several schemes and initiatives. Now, we have allocated funds for them and are also executing a lot of the measures announced earlier.
Coming to the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), there is a demand to expand its area of operations to include more work, so that surplus migrant labour could be employed.
I seriously feel those who raise questions on MGNREGA and its functioning don’t have any knowledge about rural India and how things work there. These people don’t know how many migrant labourers have reached the villages. They also don’t have any idea about how many labourers have got jobs under the scheme.
I want to bring to your notice that we have sanctioned ~33,000 crore for MGNREGA works so far, of which ~21,000 crore has already been released to the states. To date, around
25 million people have been offered jobs under the scheme in this financial year, while almost 150 million persondays of work has been generated so far under the scheme. The data shows that in May alone, almost
40 per cent more people have got work under the scheme, compared to the previous year.
How do you see the coming kharif sowing season panning out?
For kharif, all states have assured us that there is no need to worry. We have adequate quantities of fertiliser, seeds, and pesticides. We normally need around 15 million tonne (mt) of seeds and at present, we have around 15.3 mt of seeds available. Based on India Meteorological Department’s forecast, I am sure we will have a very good kharif crop.