Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president V.M. Sudheeran has called upon farmers’ organisations to join hands to resist what he termed the “anti-rubber-farmer policies of the Central government.”
Mr. Sudheeran told presspersons here on Monday that the apathy of the Centre to the concerns of the rubber farmers was evident from the inordinate delay in reconstituting the Rubber Board. He urged the Centre to reconstitute the board immediately.
In the past one year, the Rubber Board had discontinued nearly 25 schemes for promoting natural rubber, he said. The latest in the series was the move to exclude Kerala from the subsidy scheme for new planting and replanting.Mr. Sudheeran said the Central authorities depended on data provided by the board to formulate policies in the rubber sector. But the new policies being put together appear to be based on erroneous data provided by the board. “I doubt whether the board, constituted to help and promote rubber cultivation, is playing the villain,” the KPCC chief said.
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He said the Joint Platform of Farmers’ Organisations had decided to spearhead the agitation against the Union government’s policies. They would prepare a charter of demands to be submitted to the State and the Centre, he said. “We are seriously thinking of a series of agitations, including a march to Parliament,” Mr. Sudheeran said.
In spite of its best intention, the attempt of the State government to put together an effective procurement operation had not borne fruit, Mr. Sudheeran said. “Efforts will have to be made to devise a foolproof scheme that will ensure that the funds earmarked for procurement operations reach the farmer and are not siphoned off by middlemen,” he said.