Farmers' new demands need wider debate: Centre

Tribune News Service

Ajay Banerjee

New Delhi, February 13

The government tonight claimed that it had done much more for the farm sector than the Manmohan Singh-led UPA government and added that notwithstanding the breakdown of talks with the farmers at Chandigarh last night, it “was ready for further discussions”.

The addition of fresh issues by the farmers needed wider discussions, Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting Anurag Thakur said tonight. “The government is always ready for discussions. Whenever a demand arises, the government itself comes forward,” he said. Referring to the Chandigarh meeting, he said, “Union ministers sat continuously for several hours at night for discussions. We held two rounds of talks with the protesters. The government is clearly in favour of continuing discussions, but the protesters moved out.”

On the question of resuming talks with the protesters, Thakur said, “The solution to any issue comes only through discussions…. The Modi government is committed to ensuring the welfare of farmers. Over the past 10 years, crores of farmers across the country have benefitted under various government schemes. The protesters need to understand that by continuously adding new issues, a resolution cannot be achieved immediately.”

He referred to the farmers’ demands of India moving out of the World Trade Organization regime; ending the free-trade agreement; stopping the installation of smart meters; exclusion of stubble-burning issue from talks or excluding agriculture from the climate issue. “It is not possible to resolve all these issues in a day,” Thakur added.

“All states and stakeholders need to be on board that is why the government proposed to form a committee to discuss it in detail. There was neither any deficiency on part of the government before, nor there is any deficiency now,” he said.

In 2013-14, while the UPA government was in power, the highest agriculture budget was Rs 27,662 crore. At present, the agriculture budget is over Rs 1.25 lakh crore, almost a five-time hike.

“There was no Kisan Samman Nidhi scheme during the UPA regime, we provided relief to over 11 crore farmers through this scheme. A sum of Rs 2.81 lakh crore has been directly transferred into the bank accounts of farmers,” he added.

Earlier, farmers did not get anything under the crop insurance scheme. Under the Modi government, farmers have received compensation of more than Rs 1.5 lakh crore. The Modi government also spent about Rs 15, 500 crore on various irrigation schemes, he added.

More time needed

Can’t have a resolution immediately if new demands are constantly raised. — Anurag Thakur, union minister

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