Policy freeze stalls initiatives on farm front, we need action
This is a story of two ‘draft’ documents on ‘agriculture policy for Punjab’ that the Punjab State Farmers’ and Farm Workers’ Commission has prepared.
The commission submitted the first ‘draft’ policy to the government in March 2013, when GS Kalkat, who passed away in January this year, was its chairman. A nine-member committee with members drawn from diverse, yet related fields had drafted it. Besides others, it included two IAS officers, both financial commissioners, and vice-chancellors of Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) and Guru Angad Dev Veterinary and Animal Sciences University (GADVASU).
The commission’s second ‘draft’ policy, unveiled early this month, is now in the public domain. The four-member committee that prepared the ‘draft’ had, as its members, additional chief secretary, development and vice-chancellors of PAU and GADVASU.
FIRST AND SECOND DRAFT REPORTS
In the prologue to the second draft report, chairman Ajay Vir Jakhar writes, “The fact that there was no such policy earlier in the state has made this task more challenging.” Was he not briefed about the existence of the first ‘draft’ policy?
Members of the first committee worked on the premise that ‘crisis-ridden agriculture’ in Punjab needed a policy framework to ‘improve productivity, profitability and sustainability of farming, as a way forward to accelerate growth’. The second ‘draft’ report lists its four objectives as ‘achieving acceptable levels of living standards for all; conserving natural resources; combating disguised unemployment; and improving governance and delivery of services to farmers’.
Apart from these two ‘drafts, the commission, across the years, has prepared numerous reports on myriad issues that impact agriculture and rural life.
WHO IS TO IMPLEMENT?
The question is: Who is to implement the agriculture policy? The first policy ‘draft’ has disappeared somewhere in the state’s space. How long will the current ‘draft’ stay in the state’s orbit or burn out? The answer lies in the commission’s own admission: “(it) ...is a statutory body and does not have a mandate for implementing the recommended policy interventions’. Therefore, this policy document has no action plan supporting it. All that it says is that “A detailed action plan will be prepared by different government departments with the concurrence of the PSFC….’
Most available reports on the farm-front come from the state’s own institutions. However, persistent policy-freeze has stalled initiatives on these, marking agriculture development and rural transformation as ‘work-in-progress’.
Had it not been so, the muchtalked about ‘diversification of agriculture in Punjab’ would have taken place 32 years ago, when the SS Johl committee submitted the first-ever report to the government in May 1986. The result: instead of diversification, Punjab is headed toward ‘desertification’ in the next two decades or so.
PLOUGHING THE SAME FIELD
Taken together, the two ‘drafts’ plough the same field. Only furrow patterns are different. So is the language and style of presentation! Apart from what the two ‘drafts’ mention, there are other worrisome issues that must be integrated into the policy. One is the ‘trust-deficit’ between the government and farmers. The others are: the growing rural-urban divide, internal migration; time-pass rural youth; and missing rural education and health delivery systems. These have a cascading affect on urban life.
The two ‘drafts’ are silent on logistics – administrative and financial – on the recommendations it has made. There is no word on either public or private investment initiatives. There is no mention of the education/ nutritional needs of the rural girl-child ; infrastructure; application of informationtechnology, computers and agro-metrology in farm-management; involvement of homegrown scientists, sociologists and psychologists to educate village homemakers on budgeting and self-help income generating vocations.
Notwithstanding the commission’s own limitations as a ‘statutory body’, the second report repeatedly uses the word ‘shall’ in its policy directions to the government. And, ‘will’ when it comes to the section on water and power (a politically sensitive issue), agriculture research and education, farm extension, post-harvest, value addition and marketing, credit and risk management and farm mechanisation.
The first ‘draft’ on ‘water and power’ makes a pithy statement: ‘To ensure the efficient use of water and power, the supply should be metered and farmers should be charged beyond a certain level of free supply. The subsidy amount so saved should be used for agricultural research and development and skill-development for rural employment’.
The second ‘draft’ on the same issue lists 15 points. The key point is: ‘Initially, level a flat rate for power at ₹100 per BHP, per month, for the farmer owning four hectares of land or more, to be used for welfare of small, marginal and landless farmers. Subsequently, consider rationing the power subsidy to a financial cap for such farmers’. And, ‘explore options of providing power subsidy as a direct benefit transfer’.
TWO DRAFTS ARE MIRROR IMAGES
Free power to farmers is a politically sensitive issue; so is ‘indebtedness and waiver’ schemes. It is doubtful if any policy will yield the desired harvest, unless political parties, across the spectrum, work in lock-step, give up competitive politics and populism; and farmers and splintered unions come on board.
In the ‘draft’ policies there is nothing out-of-the-box to write home about. The two are like mirror images. These do convey that agrarian distress is the sum total of a string of multi-dimensional storms, and manmade crises; thanks to successive governments’ apathy. Those storms have become a thick haze. For too long, multiple government agencies, ensconced in their cocoons, have worked in isolation to dissipate this haze or sort out the man-made crises, but failed.
AGRICULTURE DEVELOPMENT AND RURAL TRANSFORMATION REMAIN ‘WORKINPROGRESS’. INSTEAD OF DIVERSIFICATION, PUNJAB IS HEADED TOWARD ‘DESERTIFICATION’