PTI
New Delhi
Putting up a strong defence of the new farm laws, Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar on Friday said the government’s offer to amend them to assuage farmers’ sentiments did not mean they had any flaws and none from the protesting unions or their sympathisers have been able to point out any lacuna.
Countering the Opposition’s claim that farmers across the country are agitated over the three laws, he said in Rajya Sabha that peasants of just one state are being misinformed and instigated.
In an apparent reference to a booklet released by the Congress recently, the minister slammed the party saying: “The world knows water is required for farming. Only Congress can do farming using blood. BJP cannot do this.”
Acknowledging that the three laws are currently a burning issue, the senior minister said Opposition parties criticised the government and even termed the three legislations as “black law”.
“For two months I kept asking farmer unions what is ‘kala’ in the laws so that I can try to rectify. But I could not get the answer… Also nobody (from opposition benches) tried to point out the provisions in the laws which are against farmers,” he said.
Tomar, along with two other Union ministers, has held 11 meetings with farmers’ representatives in wake of the ongoing protests. But the deadlock still continues.
Thousands of farmers, mainly from Punjab, Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh are protesting at different borders of the national capital demanding repeal of The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020, The Farmers’ (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement On Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020 and The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020. The Supreme Court has stayed their implementation till further order.
They are also demanding a legal guarantee of the minimum support price (MSP) for crops.
The government, Tomar stressed, is committed to welfare of farmers and to the continuation of the ‘mandi’ system of procurement of crops on MSP-based mechanism.
The laws give farmers alternatives to sell their produce outside ‘mandis’, and unlike the state government-notified market places, such sale would not attract any tax, he said.
“The agitation should have been against the tax levied (by state government) on sale made in mandis but strangely the protests are against freeing of the system from such taxes,” he said, intervening during the discussion on a motion thanking the President for his address to the joint sitting of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha at the start of the Budget Session.
The Union Minister said while the central law on contract farming frees farmers from paying taxes on their sale and also empowers them to exit agreement with traders, as per the provisions of Punjab contract law, a farmer could be sent to jail or liable to pay penalty of up to Rs 5 lakh for violation of agreement.
