Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on Monday said the anti-farmer policies adopted by successive Congress governments at the Centre over the years had forced beleaguered farmers to commit suicide in the State.
The State wanted the Union government to constitute a high-level committee of agriculture experts to help retrieve the economically strained economy from the current agrarian crisis.
‘State has no role’
“The State government had hardly any role in fixing the costs of agriculture inputs like diesel, pesticides, fertilizers and even the Minimum Support Price [MSP], which primarily fell within the domain of the Centre,” Mr. Badal told journalists in Lambi (Muktsar).
He said the Congress governments at the Centre for over six decades had completely ignored the hardships faced by farmers, resulting in a situation where farmers were forced to commit suicide.
“The ever-widening gulf between the income and the costs incurred by farmers on agriculture inputs due to faulty policies of the previous Congress governments at the Centre has made agriculture a non-profitable profession,” said Mr. Badal.
In touch with Modi
He said the State government was in constant touch with Prime Minister Narendra Modi to resolve the current farm crisis.
“We had initiated certain steps to put the derailed agrarian economy on track by giving subsidy to the tune of Rs. 5,000 crore annually to the Punjab State Power Corporation limited in lieu of free power to the farm sector and enhancing the natural calamity fund from Rs. 3,400 to Rs. 8,000 per acre,” he said.
Crop loan
The State government had also started a scheme to provide interest-free crop loans worth Rs. 50,000 to farmers. They would also be provided a health insurance cover of Rs. 50,000 and an insurance of Rs. 5 lakh in case of accidental death or incapacitation of head of family, Mr. Badal said.
