Two days after Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao’s indication about the State government’s changing stand on the controversial new farm laws against which the farming community is agitating for over a month outside Delhi, Minister for Agriculture S. Niranjan Reddy said on Tuesday that there is no harm in examining their “impact” for a couple of seasons.
Speaking during the inauguration of Rythu Vedikas in Kalwakurthy area of Nagarkurnool district, he said the practical pros and cons of the new farms laws would be known only if the farmers sell their produce in a couple of seasons.
The State government had explained in different forms about the possible adverse impact on the farming community with the new laws. However, the Centre was going ahead with the implementation of the new laws and it would be imperative for the State government to implement the laws under the constitutional provisions. Since the Centre and the leaders of BJP were repeatedly speaking that the new laws would be useful to farmers, it had to be seen whether such positive impact would be there.
Stating that it was the Centre that would decide the minimum support price (MSP) for crops and farmers would have freedom to sell their produce wherever they wanted for a better price, Mr. Niranjan Reddy said Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself was reassuring that it would be his responsibility to ensure MSP to the farm produce, the way ahead for the State would be wait-and-watch and welcome the laws if they do good as is being claimed.
Besides, many experts in agriculture sector and scientists were of the view that it would be wise for State governments to wait and watch the impact of new farm laws and procurement of crops under price support scheme as the government was providing seed and fertiliser under subsidy, the Minister said.
The State government was mobilising farmers with implementation of Rythu Vedikas to face any eventuality. He stated that the farmers had made the regulated farming a success during the last season, although the opposition parties had politicised it. Under Rythu Bandhu, ₹1,619.42 crore was credited into the bank acounts of 30.73 lakh pattadar farmers in the first two days of the benefit disbursement, he noted.
