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Tuesday,
September 24, 2002,
Chandigarh, India  
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Amarinder threatens dharna at PM’s house New Delhi, September 23 The agitational programme, which has the clearance of the Congress high-command, was discussed at a meeting the Chief Minister had with party ministers and MLAs at Punjab Bhavan this evening. The Prime Minister is on a visit to Maldives and is scheduled to return by September 26. Sources said though the Punjab Congress leaders had decided in principle to go ahead with the agitation against the Centre, its exact nature, date and time would be decided tomorrow after the Chief Minister’s meeting with Finance Minister Jaswant Singh at 3 pm. If nothing concrete emerges, the Congress leaders would announce the agitation “which will be carried to Punjab also.” The sources said that PCC chief H S Hanspal had discussed the issue with AICC General Secretary Mohsina Kidwai, who is in charge of Punjab. The Chief Minister had warned earlier today that the Centre was forcing the Congress government in the state to “create history” by resorting to an agitation in Delhi. Perhaps never has a Chief Minister staged a dharna in front of the Prime Minister’s house. The Chief Minister, who today met Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani, Agriculture Minister Ajit Singh and Food and Agriculture Minister Sharad Yadav regarding problems faced by farmers, accused the Centre and former Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal of politicising the issue of procurement. He submitted a memorandum to Mr Advani. Refuting Mr Badal’s criticism, the Chief Minister said the state government had been raising the issue of MSP and procurement with the Centre for the past several months. Accusing Mr Badal of making “political capital out of people’s miseries,” the Chief Minister alleged that the Shiromani Akali Dal leader had been privately telling NDA leaders to delay decisions on the MSP and procurement to embarrass the Congress government in Punjab. Finance Minister Lal Singh, who was with the Chief Minister, alleged that Mr Badal had warned farmers in the run-up to the elections that
procurement of crops would suffer if the Congress came to power. “Rattled by the smooth procurement ensured by the
Congress government in the last crop season, Mr Badal was now trying to create problems,” Mr Lal Singh maintained. Asked whether Mr Badal had sought higher procurement price for crops than what had been sought by the Punjab government, the Chief Minister said Mr Badal demanded more and settled for less. “What was the price he sought last year and what was the actual procurement price,” he asked. Asked about the response of the Centre, Capt Amarinder Singh said the “Central ministers had plenty of sympathy but nothing more.” He said 600 farmers had committed suicide in the state last year and his government had been writing to the Centre for the last three months about the problems. The message is that the Centre is anti-farmer, the Chief Minister alleged, blaming “either politics or lack of decision-making” for the delay in taking decisions. Without specifying a time-frame, he said if the Centre did not
immediately act on the state’s demands, the Congress government would stage a dharna in Delhi. “The Centre would be
responsible for the situation,” he said. The Chief Minister later held a meeting with his Cabinet colleagues and MLAs, most of whom were in Delhi to decide the next course of action. The Chief Minister will tomorrow meet Finance Minister Jaswant Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi. Capt Amarinder Singh said based on assessment by experts, the state government had sought MSP of Rs 660 per quintal for common paddy and Rs 726 per quintal for Grade A variety. The state government had sought Rs 100 as bonus for farmers over and above the MSP due to deepening of borewells and extra consumption of diesel. The state government, he said, had spent Rs 6300 crore on saving agricultural crop in Punjab this season due to drought conditions. He said Rs 1800 crore had been lost in industrial production due to diversion of power to agriculture while the electricity board had to incur losses of Rs 800 crore. Wondering why the Centre had not started procurement from September 21 as in the previous years, the Chief Minister said two lakh tonnnes of paddy had already arrived in Punjab mandis from the border districts of Muktsar, Bathinda and Sangrur and was being sold by distressed farmers between Rs 400 and Rs 435 per quintal. The MSP last year was 560 per quintal. He reminded that 28 lakh tonnes of paddy had arrived in the mandis between September 21 and October 1 last year. Alleging that the Centre had unilaterally decided to reduce the cess included in the
procurement price from 11.5 per cent to 4 per cent, the Chief Minister said it would adversely affect development of infrastructure in the state and cause losses of about Rs 1,000 crore. He said the state which had bailed the country out of the food crisis could not be left in the lurch. “I told Mr Advani that the Centre cannot turn its back on Punjab which has been contributing over 50 per cent to the country’s food pool,” he said. Asked about the Centre’s suggestion on decentralisiation of procurement, the Chief Ministre said diversification and decentralisation had to be gradual and Punjab could not be “gullitoned.”
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Waive interest on farm loans:
Badal
New Delhi, September 23 To all intents and purposes, Capt Amarinder Singh and Mr Badal as the Leader of the Opposition in the sensitive border state have come knocking at the doors of the BJP-led NDA government, asking it not to drag its feet in announcing the minimum support price for paddy and begin the delayed procurement expeditiously. Clearly, the ball is in the Centre’s court and with Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee away on an official tour to the Maldives, Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani has advised all concerned to talk to Union Finance Minister Jaswant Singh. Mr Advani gave a patient hearing to Capt Amarinder Singh and Mr Badal and expressed sympathy towards Punjab’s toiling peasantry, which is again at the crossroads, with the Centre dithering in announcing the minimum support price well in time. Sadly, politics appears to have come to the fore even though the central issue is the crisis being faced by Punjab’s agricultural economy coupled with the deteriorating situation on the power generation front in the sensitive border state. During Mr Badal’s reign as Chief Minister of Punjab, he had to repeatedly make breezy trips to New Delhi to plead with the Centre for increasing the MSP due to various factors, including the increasing cost of inputs. Time and again Mr Vajpayee had to intervene to put matters on an even keel so that Mr Badal’s constituents were not left high and dry. The Prime Minister did so at the behest of Mr Badal even from his hospital bed in Mumbai after a knee replacement surgery. Mr Badal, who met Mr Advani as well Union Agriculture Minister Ajit Singh and Union Food Minister Sharad Yadav here today, charged Capt Amarinder Singh with criminal negligence in taking up the cause of the farmers in Punjab. Emphasising that this year had been one of the worst, he said the Congress government had “not shown any interest.” He claimed that the SAD government in Punjab headed by him always prepared detailed briefs and rushed to the Centre at least 15 to 20 days in advance so that there was no delay in announcing the MSP and procurement started in time rather than the farmers flooding the markets and suffering losses for their produce. Drawing pointed attention to the fact that 70 per cent of the people in Punjab depended on agriculture, Mr Badal regretted that if the “farmer becomes weak, then it has a cascading effect all around, including industry.” He rued the fact that the “Centre did not have a viable and good agriculture policy” and demanded that the interest on loans to the agriculture sector be waived. “The human factor in agriculture has been completely ignored and the greatest attention should be paid to this factor,” he added. Mr Badal’s four-point demand to the Centre is: (A) The MSP for paddy be fixed at Rs 750 per quintal. (B) Purchase tax of 7.5 per cent must not be included in the MSP as this will break the back of the peasantry. (C) Because of inclement weather, quality specifications for procurement be relaxed. (D) Procurement, which has already been delayed, be started forthwith.  |
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