Ravi Shankar. The Modi government has given a big relief to millions of farmers of the country. The government has extended the term for repaying short-term loans up to Rs 3 lakh with an increase in the minimum support price (MSP) of 14 kharif crops, including paddy. Apart from this, the government has also approved one country one market policy. With this, farmers will be able to sell their crop anywhere in the country. Earlier, the farmers were obliged to sell their crop only in the mandis of the Agricultural Product Market Committee, but now this obligation will be over. The government claims that this will increase the income of farmers.
Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar says that no government will have any tax on the purchase and sale of farmer’s produce outside the agricultural market. Being open market will increase competition and this will increase the income of farmers. A person who has a PAN card can buy the produce of the farmer. Due to various restrictions, farmers face a lot of difficulty in selling their produce.
There are several restrictions on selling products by farmers outside the market area of the Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee. They are allowed to sell their products to government licensed buyers only. Apart from this, there are many obstacles in the way of smooth trade of such products. But with the enactment of the relevant ordinance, a conducive and free environment will be created for the farmers, in which they will have the freedom to buy and sell agricultural produce according to their convenience. This will provide more options to the farmers.
It is true that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has pledged to double the income of farmers by 2022. To achieve this goal, the government is making new efforts for the development of agriculture and non-agricultural sectors. Meanwhile, the cost of cultivation is continuously increasing, but in that proportion the prices of crops received by the farmers have increased very rarely. This results in a never-ending mounting debt on the farmer.
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As farmers’ produce is sold more by middlemen and traders, they are somehow caught in their clutches. The job of the middleman is to buy grain from the farmer at a cheap price and sell it at an expensive price. In this whole process, most of the real profits are eaten by middlemen and both farmers and consumers are cheated. The farmer gets a small portion of the price the consumer pays for a crop product. Sometimes only 20 to 30 percent of the market value reaches the farmer.
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In such a situation how can the farmer be happy. But after the implementation of one country one market policy, the role of middlemen will end and they will get better price for their crop. After all, what is the reason that every year millions of farmers are becoming alienated from farming. We should not forget that the agriculture sector currently accounts for 14 per cent of India’s gross domestic product (GDP), while around 53 per cent of the country’s population depends on it.
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This much is clear that the total area of farming is limited and the number of farmers is decreasing rapidly. If not today, tomorrow this trend will have adverse effect on food production also. Therefore, the government will have to pay adequate attention to this in time, otherwise our self-sufficiency in the production of food grains may be affected, which is better than anywhere in the future. Therefore, first of all, the government will have to insist on implementing all practical measures to increase farmers’ income.
