360 degree: Another carrot for farmers

Union finance minister Arun Jaitley’s Budget has no ray of hope for the farmers, though the media has created hype that the Budget is pro-farmer. He has said that the government aims at doubling the income of farmers by 2022, merely repeating what PM Narendra Modi told farmers in Chhattisgarh. Let me remind the readers that in his election campaign Mr Modi had repeatedly said that if he is made PM he will see to it that the farmers get minimum support price for their produce with 50 per cent profit margin on the investment. Now he doesn’t speak about that promise anymore and his partymen say that it is impossible to do that, as the prices in international market are low. Mr Jaitley is mysteriously silent about how he will double the farmers’ income by 2022. If he is sincere, then every year from now the MSP of agriculture produce has to increase by 15-20 per cent.

If MSP is increased what steps will the government take to protect farmers from the low global prices so that the increased MSP will be maintained in the local markets? If in the free market economy that doesn’t become possible will the government give direct subsidy then? This government has shown its true colours by already reducing farm subsidies that were given by the Manmohan Singh government. For example, subsidy on urea (chemical fertilisers) has come down substantially as international crude prices plunged and naphta prices crashed. The Indian farmers didn’t get any benefit of that. So where did the subsidy saved go? It should have been spent in the farm sector, or allocated for the dry land farmer! But that didn’t happen and therefore another reason why this so-called pro-farmer Budget is misleading.

The soil health report card scheme and the PM’s crop insurance scheme has been declared and funds have been allocated also for irrigation. That’s fine. But not a single thought has been given to the dryland farmer who makes up nearly 75 per cent of farming households.

Even the crop insurance scheme, If it has to help farmers, really, then the unit of execution should be at village level and not block as at present where measurement of losses are based on the average of 100 villages which does not help farmers. The government’s agricultural insurance company is prepared to do this but state governments have to ask for it. And they are lax. Mr Jaitley has said that the 7th Pay Commission will be implemented where the minimum salary will be Rs 18,000 per month or Rs 600 per day. They why not raise the wages of agricultural labour under the MGNREGS by at least Rs 400 or Rs 600 a day and simultaneously ask the Agricultural Cost and Prices Commission to recalculate the cost of production of the farmer? One expects the Modi government to do what the Manmohan government didn’t do, if there is to be inclusive growth and less disparity between urban and rural India.