CHANDIGARH: Welcoming the Prime Minister’s proposal to hold a direct dialogue on Wednesday with farmers across the country, Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh has expressed the hope it would lead to the announcement of key initiatives for the welfare of the farming community, including waiver of their debts and in toto implemesntation of the Swaminathan Committee report.
In a statement issued here on Tuesday, the Chief Minister urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to use the forum for initiating the much-needed reforms in the beleaguered agriculture sector, which was crying for assistance from the central government.
Reiterating his demand for a national debt waiver scheme for farmers, as well as the implementation of the Swaminathan Commission report in totality, Captain Amarinder Singh said the farmers were in dire need for the Prime Minister’s intervention on these two counts in order to save the nation from an agricultural disaster.
The Chief Minister, who has been aggressively pursuing these issues with the Central Government for the past several months, hoped that the proposed dialogue by the Prime Minister with farmers through his NaMo app would yield concrete results and not turn out to be a mere media op.
Captain Amarinder Singh pointed out that he had been personally raising the issue of farm debt waiver by the central government, as well as full implementation of the Swaminathan Committee report, at various forums, including the NITI Aayog meeting held on Sunday. He further observed that he had clearly outlined the need for these initiatives by the Centre, and hoped that the same would now be resonated in the Prime Minister’s announcements during his dialogue with the farmers.
Given the extreme agrarian crisis prevailing in the country, which was witnessing suicides by distressed farmers across states, Modi should seize this opportunity to announce major relief measures for the farming community, said Captain Amarinder Singh, adding that if the Prime Minister was serious about realising his vision of doubling farm income by 2022, he should waste no further time in announcing total implementation of Swaminathan Committee report.
A one-time debt waiver was also essential to bring the beleaguered farmers out of the current crisis and put them back on the path of prosperity, said the Chief Minister. Pointing out that his own government had been trying to help the farmers out of the current crisis with a special debt waiver scheme, despite the severe financial constraints it was facing, the Chief Minister said the central government’s assistance would help rescue the farming community around the country.
Let this occasion be ‘historical’ in the true sense, said Captain Amarinder Singh, adding that the implementation of the Swaminathan Committee report was the only real way to rescue the stressed farmers, who are currently unable to meet both ends as a result of the lopsided existing agriculture policy.
As a nation, we owe this to our farmers, who have fed us through generations and continue to be our ‘Annadattas’, the Chief Minister said, once again pushing for the Prime Minister’s personal support to the farming community.