Farmers Movement Archive

Reforms are the road to 21st century India: PM

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday said the farm reform Bills passed in Parliament were “historic” and the road to 21st century India. Mr. Modi was inaugurating and laying the foundation for nine road projects and high-speed optical fiber Internet services worth several thousand crores through videoconference in Bihar. Earlier agriculture laws had chained farmers and middlemen were taking advantage of the archaic laws, he said. But now, through the reforms, new freedom had been given to the farmers who would have more options to sell their produce. “They can sell their produce either in the local mandis [markets] or beyond,” said Mr. Modi. “Farmers are selling potatoes and their mustard produce at 20-25% higher price in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and other States,” he said. “Some people are protesting against these reform Bills because control of farmers has slipped away from their hands,” he said. “These people [those opposing the farm Bills] are also misleading farmers on MSP [minimum support price]... But I want to make it clear that MSP will continue to function like earlier... On MSP our government has done that much of work which has not been done earlier,” said Mr. Modi. “These are the same people who kept sitting for years under the recommendations of the Swaminathan committee on MSP.” This was Mr. Modi’s fifth foundation-laying programme in poll-bound Bihar. On September 23, he is scheduled to address the sixth and last such function.

The Hindu

2020-09-22

Patna