NEW DELHI: In a fresh attack against the BJP-led Centre, the Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) on Friday said farmers did not need more loans but freedom from indebtedness, terming as another ‘jumla’ (dialogue) the statement by Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar regarding the Agriculture Infrastructure Fund.
“The Modi government is notorious for ‘jumlas’ it spins using a web of outright false claims and exaggerated numbers, which grab the day’s headlines and mislead the public,” the SKM alleged in a statement, a day after Tomar said Agricultural Produce Market Committees (APMCs) will have access to Rs 1 lakh crore allocated to the Agriculture Infrastructure Fund (AIF).
The SKM claimed the “minor and insignificant decision about some guidelines changed in the scheme, which now allows APMCs also to access a financing facility under the AIF, were presented as ‘Rs 1 lakh crore allocation to APMCs'”.
“What farmers or their collectives need are not more loans, but freedom from indebtedness. And they need a legally guaranteed remunerative price for their market interfaces,” the SKM said, asking the Modi government to “stop its ‘jumlas’ around the three anti-farmer laws and repeal the same immediately, and enact a new law to guarantee remunerative MSP for all commodities and farmers”.
The morcha said “referring to Rs 1 lakh crore Agriculture Infrastructure Fund is highly misleading because there has been no allocation of even a thousand crore from the government”.
“It has merely created a new head under which loans can be accessed from banks. The actual financing is dependent on regular commercial banks, and India’s story of banking sector mismanagements and collusions with big capitalists is well-known,” it said.
“The government’s role is only to provide an interest subvention of a mere 3 per cent and some credit guarantee coverage. Only Rs 208 crore was allocated for the AIF in the revised Budget of 2020-21, and Rs 900 crore in the Budget for 2021-22,” it added.
The morcha claimed even in terms of loans, “only Rs 3,241 crore was sanctioned from the AIF as of March 2021 (Rs 4,300 crore as per some subsequent media reports), whereas the AIF was announced to be a Covid-19 rescue package as though it would immediately infuse Rs 1 lakh crore into agriculture”.
“In the six months during which the three farm laws were in operation before the Supreme Court suspended them, the trade in most APMC market yards collapsed by almost half and their revenues dropped drastically. The Centre has shown that it has no commitment to building and expanding the public market and storage infrastructure for the benefit of small farmers, and has set upon facilitating the Adanis, Walmart and Reliance to build private markets, storage and processing facilities,” it alleged.