GOVTS FOOLING FARMERS FOR DECADES

Apropos the news report “Punjab farmers join hands for statewide protests on June 12”, Indian farmers will be living in a fool’s paradise if they think the provincial or federal regimes would save them from suicides and penury. It is not for the first time that the plight of the farmers has become so pitiable. In Punjab, the government in 2003-04 set in to initiate legislation but kept on fooling the peasantry for more than a decade till it actually came up one in 2016. But the Agriculturists’ Settlement of Indebtedness Act, 2016, has been of no consequence so far as farmers are waiting for loan waiver. Surinderjit Singh Sandhu, Amritsar

or for competitive social reasons like marriages or other functions. The governments don’t share data on agricultural costs vis-a-vis final market price of produce. They should conduct research on agricultural inputs and output. State governments act swiftly only when there is a tragedy and announce relief amount to crores of rupees.

Devinder Singh, Patiala

the number of farmer suicides. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been talking of doubling the income of farmers by 2022 and now Rajnath is repeating the same amid widespread anguish in the farming community. The government wants another term from farmers before doing anything for them. The statement is an attempt to befool them. Abhiraj singh Bajwa,

Hoshiarpur