Farmers Movement Archive

Farmers up ante, nix govt offer, demand higher MSP

NEW DELHI/BATHINDA: Dramatically upping the ante while rejecting the Centre’s proposals as “meaningless amendments”, agitating farm unions on Wednesday said talks could restart only if repeal of the three new agri laws was on the agenda and added a demand for revised cost of production that will increase support price. The unions wrote to the agriculture ministry saying they were ready for talks only if the Centre came out with a “concrete proposal” without repeating proposed changes to the farm laws offered earlier. The unions iterated the demand for legal guarantee for minimum support price (MSP), saying this should be on the agenda and drew attention to the National Commission on Farmers’ recommendation on support price on a higher slab of cost of production. The demand for a revised procurement price is significant as this entails the C2 plus 50% formula which includes imputed rent and interest on owned land and capital. As per the current formula, actual paid cost of inputs and imputed value of family labour are taken into consideration for arriving at a “costs plus 50%” calculation. While a legal guarantee for MSP has been part of the demand, the unions want this on the agenda along with repeal of laws for talks to resume. They also said the Essential Commodities Act was not mentioned by the Centre nor was there any clarity on the Electricity Bill, 2020. “Farmers want repeal of the laws. Half-hearted amendments are not acceptable,” said Yogendra Yadav, leader of Swaraj India. This, the group of farm leaders said, was made clear during the meeting with Union ministers on December 5, and then again when the Centre sent draft proposals on December 9. The farmers said it was up to the Union government to make up its mind and come up with a "concrete proposal". Read AlsoFarmers demand concrete proposals for talks, not ‘love letters’: Top developmentsNEW DELHI: The protesting farmers on Wednesday said they were ready for talks with the government but demanded concrete proposals instead of “love letters”. Meanwhile, the Narendra Modi government said there were more agricultural reforms on the anvil and hoped that the farmers would agree toThough the unions, opposed to the farm laws, have been demanding a legal guarantee for MSP for a long time, their six-point letter made it more pointed with the farm leaders emphasising, “Hame daan nahin, daam chahiye (we don’t want charity, we want remunerative price of produce).” “We want to assure you that protesting farmers and unions are ready for talks with the government and we are waiting for the government to take the discussion forward with an open mind and clear intention,” farmer leader Darshan Pal said in the letter on behalf of the group of 40 unions. Responding to the ministry’s December 9 proposals and its follow-up letter of December 20, Pal said, “We urge you to send us concrete proposals, without repeating the already rejected amendments, so that it can be made an agenda to resume discussion as early as possible.” The letter is an indication that the unions are not keen to renew negotiations unless it is on their demand for repeal of farm laws even as the Centre has made it plain that the Acts are part of larger reforms to provide farmers choice of market, access to technology and to encourage entrepreneurship. Read AlsoGovt ready to make changes to proposal; farmers demand concrete solutionNEW DELHI: Union agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar on Wednesday said that the government is ready to make any necessary changes to the draft proposal on the new farm laws and hoped to resume dialogue with the farmers. Meanwhile, the farmer unions also expressed their willingness to resumeThe unions objected to remarks of certain ministers about separatists and Maoist elements infiltrating the protests with their own design. The letter said, “You are dealing with protesting farmers in a manner as if they are not aggrieved citizens but political rivals. Farmers would be compelled to intensify their agitation further for their survival if the government continues to treat them in that manner.” Instead of repeal, the ministry had on December 9 proposed amendments to further strengthen the farm laws. The amendments included provisions of registration of private traders and private market areas outside regulated 'mandis', equal taxes/fees for APMC mandis and private markets to maintain parity with the government-controlled ‘mandis’, providing an alternative of civil courts for dispute resolution and registration of contracts by states. Besides, the government agreed to give “written assurance” on continuing with the existing MSP procurement regime. On the issue of penalty to farmers for stubble burning under the new ordinance on air quality management in Delhi-NCR, the ministry assured the farmers’ unions that the Centre would resolve the concerns adequately. Read Also‘Centre doesn’t seem serious, trying to suppress farmers’BBKU (Ekta Sidhupur) president Jagjit Singh Dallewal, one of the senior-most leaders of the ongoing protest against Centre’s new agriculture laws, said the central government did not appear to be serious on farmers’ demand and was adopting all means and methods to suppress the movement, either byFarmers’ unions had, however, rejected all these amendments and assurances on December 9, leading to breakdown of the discussion which had been going on since October 13. The unions’ letter on Wednesday put their rejection to those amendments in a written form while seeking a “concrete proposal” to resume talks if the government accepted their core demand. Asked to elaborate on the “concrete proposal”, Yogendra Yadav said, “Farmers want repeal of the laws and they also want legal guarantee to MSP as per the recommendation of the National Commission on Farmers. We don’t want a gift of new farm laws from the government. We want remunerative price for our produce.” Flagging the MSP issue as another key demand, farmer leader from Madhya Pradesh Shiv Kumar Sharma Kakkaji said, “The issue could not be discussed in the last 5-6 rounds of talks. This is an important issue and a discussion should also be held on this."

The Times of India

2020-12-24

India