NEW DELHI/ From Our Bureau
The Samyukt Kisan Morcha, that spearheaded the year-long farmers’ protests at Delhi borders, an its leftist affiliate Akhil Bhartiya Kisan Mazdoor Sabha, on Thursday condemned the “zero budget natural farming” (ZBNF) scheme in the Union Budget, asserting that it will ruin the small and marginal farmers as their production and returns will fall by 30 per cent.
The farmers are already cold to the budget proposal to promote ZBNF farming on both sides of the corridors of the river Ganga to stop damage to land from the chemical fertiliser.
In a statement, they said the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s poll promise was to double the farmers’ income by 2022, but instead it is only helping the corporate and multinational companies and jacking up the input costs of the farmers, for which the BJP should be punished in the elections.
They said the Modi government has gone back on its promises to persuade the farmers withdraw their protests by not constituting a panel for fixing the minimum support price (MSP), nor compensating the martyrs of the farmers agitation, nor withdrwing the cases slapped on the agitating farmers and refusal to sack and arrest Union Minister Teni for the Lakhimpur massacre last October.
They said the government is fooling the farmers that their input costs will be “zero” under the ZBNF and demanded them compensation by the government to cover up their losses. Asserting that the ZBNF will force the farmers to give up agriculture and sell their land to the local moneyed people.
The farmer leaders said the government is promoting ZBNF while cutting down the fertiliser subsidy budget from Rs 1.55 lakh crore this fiscal to Rs 1.05 lakh crore in the new financial year.
