Urban Mirror Correspondent
New Delhi, December 18: The Lok Gathbandhan Party (LGP) today said that waiving of short-term loans of farmers is not a panacea to the agrarian crisis in the country. The LGP said the decision of newly installed Congress governments in MP, Rajasthan and Chattisgarh to waive off loans of farmers will not help solve their acute farming problems and only provide only temporary succour.
The spokesman of the party said here on Tuesday that loan waiving by these states would also limit their ability to undertake investment in agriculture sector necessary for long-term growth. The spokesman said the Congress governments in these states have looked into only short-term political gains at the cost of state exchequer, which is already under strain. Pointing out that loan waiving would further constrain the revenue resources in these states, which are already in the red, the spokesman said such a lopsided approach is not at all in the interest of farming community. The spokesman said these states would have to resort to further borrowing to meet the financial requirements thereby putting further pressure on the states’ resources.
The spokesman said that agriculture sector, ignored for long a time, required multi-pronged strategy to overcome the crises, as successive central governments have so far resorted to tokenism to solve the farmers issues but it has failed to yield positive results. The spokesman said the LGP has long been demanding total reform in farm sector with improvement in supply of seeds, fertilizers, programme for upgrading land, elimination of middlemen in sale of farm produce and double return to farmers according to cost inputs. The spokesman said LGP also wanted skill development in rural areas so that youth could also be involved in non-agriculture sector to enhance their income without migrating to urban areas.
The spokesman that the agriculture sector crisis is deeper which could not be solved by such government’s announcements. The spokesman said less than one-fourth of the country’s cereal production is procured at MSP and mismanagement at procurement centres over the years have demonstrated that farmers preferred market to these government controlled places, where irregularities are galore. The central and state governments despite making tall claims never bothered to improve services at these centres. The spokesman said over the years the governments followed lopsided policy with inadequate support to the sector which has now caused immense miseries to the farmers. The spokesman said farm sector should be put at par with industrial sector and all equal facilities should be given to improve the situation.
