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Hint At Pro-Farmer Budget

BW Online Bureau Nov 08, 2014

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><root available-locales="en_US," default-locale="en_US"><static-content language-id="en_US"><![CDATA[Three days before P. Chidambaram unwraps his budget, the Congress has signalled loud and clear that it will have to be a "pro-farmer" one. To start with, the party's priorities were different: a nano loan waiver scheme for small farmers, a nano housing scheme with houses costing Rs 1 lakh and lower interest rates for home loan borrowers. Mid-course, it changed tack and proclaimed that nobody but the farmer mattered. The direction change came from Sonia Gandhi when she spoke in Rae Bareli, her Lok Sabha constituency, last Tuesday. She said while an 8-9 per cent growth rate was not a small achievement, her index of "gross national happiness" had another parameter: making farmers smile. Two days later, S.S. Surjewala, the head of the farmers' cell, met the Congress president and handed over a charter of demands for the Prime Minister and the finance minister. The next step was taken by a delegation from Punjab that called on Sonia and Manmohan Singh yesterday. Their grouse was the Akali Dal had propagated that the UPA was against farmers when, in fact, Punjab was going through its "worst agrarian crisis" in living memory. A source said the new thrust was an attempt to deflect attention from three issues: • Price rise (in Delhi, brinjals were selling at Rs 30 a kg and peas at Rs 20 a kg in winter when they are generally cheaper) • Low growth rate in agriculture (2.3 per cent in the 10th plan) • "Disconnect" between gross domestic product and the rural sector. Farmers have also been affected by displacement, migration, unemployment and suicides. A food crisis could be impending if the monsoon is bad and wheat yields are low. Sources hoped the anticipated debt relief package for institutional loanee farmers and the expansion of the national rural employment guarantee scheme in the budget would give focus to the "pro-farmer" campaign in the run-up to the Assembly and general elections. It would also mitigate the damage done by farmers' suicides and dispossession of families by SEZs and industrial projects. The Congress was uncertain if the government would live to pass the next budget, the sources said. There was another reason for the party going overboard. "It's time the Congress starts taking credit for the Centre's achievements instead of allowing the Left and other allies to do it. We are readying the ground for it," said a source. Courtesy: The Telegraph