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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Quick fix for the farmer -Tirtha Chatterjee & Ashok Gulati

Quick fix for the farmer -Tirtha Chatterjee & Ashok Gulati

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published Published on Dec 11, 2018   modified Modified on Dec 11, 2018
-The Indian Express

In the absence of patience and vision, the loan waiver remains the most favoured response to farm distress

Thousands of farmers from different parts of India marched to Delhi on November 29-30 to register their protest against the Narendra Modi government’s perceived apathy and neglect of farmers’ demands. They were basically demanding three things: One, debate in Parliament to discuss farm distress; two, one-time loan waiver; and three, raising minimum support prices (MSPs) to 50 per cent above comprehensive cost (Cost C2) of production, and making MSPs legally binding on private traders — that is, if any trader buys below MSP, he should be put in prison for, say, three years.

Although the march was organised by the All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee, several Opposition parties of different hues came together to endorse these demands. The state assembly election results on December 11 will influence how far these demands are taken seriously by the government. Here, we look at the rationality and feasibility of these demands, and the consequences thereof, if they are accepted.

Accepting the demand for a debate in the Parliament is easy and it would help in understanding the real causes of farm distress, and the policies which could best help to tackle it. The second demand is of a one-time loan waiver. Although it is well known that loan waivers will not solve the problems of farmers, yet this demand is also likely to be met basically for votes. Already, from April 2017 to July 2018, several states (Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab, Rajasthan, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh) have announced loan waivers that together amount to Rs 1,82,802 crore. We expect that the remaining states are also likely to be added in this list during the run-up to parliamentary elections in April/May 2019. This may take the total loan waiver sum to more than Rs 4 lakh crore.

However, it is interesting to note that of the states that have already announced loan waivers, only a few budgeted them while many others have done just lip service so far. For example, Punjab announced a loan waiver of Rs 10,000 crore, but so far has budgeted less than Rs 600 crore. Further, it may be noted that it is the better ones in the peasantry which will benefit the most from this move. The small and marginal farmers often depend more on the money lenders, where the interest rates range from 24 to 48 per cent. What is needed is financial inclusion of these small and marginal farmers in institutional credit at reasonable interest rates and not outright loan waivers. These loan waivers will hit public investments in agriculture adversely and may even worsen farm distress in due course. It is a vicious circle.

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The Indian Express, 10 December, 2018, https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/quick-fix-for-the-farmer-narendra-modi-farmer-protest-agrarian-crisis-5485661/


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