From Our Bureau
NEW DELHI: Newly-appointed All India Kisan Congress chief Sardar Sukhpal Singh Khaira on Saturday warned that the country stares at an imminent severe food crisis, with the food stocks of the government dwindling, pointing out how the Centre had to slash wheat supply to 10 states, including Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh, because of a fall in the wheat production.
Khaira, a Congress MLA from Punjab, also demanded an immediate constitution of a committee to ensure the legal guarantee of the Minimum Support Price (MSP) to the farmers as committed by the Centre to the Samyukt Kisan Morcha before the withdrawal of the year-long farm law agitation on Delhi borders.
Addressing a press conference at the AICC headquarters here along with national spokesman Pawan Khera, he showed a contradiction in the Centre asking the farmers for many years to reduce paddy acreage, while Food and Consumer Affairs Minister Piyush Goyal is now desperately urging the states to increase the paddy production to avert the rice crisis.
He said the farmers are reeling under the fertiliser shortages and spiralling fertiliser prices because of the government meddling into the regular supply line.
“This mismanagement is also accompanied by betrayal and the Modi government is still trying to help its billionaire friends by bringing the discredited farm bills in by the backdoor”, he alleged, adding, “it is either ignoring or subverting the agreements it reached with the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) to end the farmers’ movement,” Khaira said.
He said the Congress supports the SKM’s call for the “Chakka Jam” (road blockade) on all highways in 500 districts on July 31 in protest of the government’s betrayal of going back on the promise to end the Delhi blockade, including enforcement of a legal guarantee of MSP.
While the government has been delaying the assurances under one or the other pretext, Khaira said more shocking is the NITI Aayog has called for ending the farm procurement, unmindful of the crisis it will create for not supplying foodgrains to the poor at low prices.
He said the prime focus of the Kisan Congress will be on implementation of the Swaminathan Commission report, besides highlihting the problems and issues concerning the farmers and the landless labourers.
His top priority will be to press for rejuvenation of agriculture and to address the issue of debt and consequent suicides by farmers across the country. He disclosed that in Punjab alone, farmers have a cumulative institutional debt of Rs 1 lakh crores.
Noting that 60-70 per cent of the population in India is dependent on agriculture, but today agriculture is no longer rewarding or remunerative as the agriculture incomes are depleting rather than being doubled by 2022 as pompously declared by Prime Minister Modi.
