BHUBANESWAR: State food supplies and consumer welfare minister Ranendra Pratap Swain on Saturday criticised the BJP-led Centre over the three farm laws, which have led to the prolonged farmers’ agitation across the country.
Briefing the media here, Swain said the Centre had lost the confidence of farmers across the country. “Although their (BJP’s)leaders are stating in Parliament that the provision of minimum support price (MSP) will remain and the mandi system will continue, there is no such provision in the new farm laws. This has led to a trust deficit among farmers,” said Swain. He also criticized BJP leaders in the state, who have mounted an attack on the Naveen Patnaik government over mandi mismanagement.
‘Our govt sympathetic to farmers’
The BJD had earlier opposed the farm laws in both houses of Parliament, and had also sought implementation of the recommendation of the MS Swaminathan Committee report in full. The state government passed two resolutions in the past two months to move the Centre reiterating its demand for the implementation of the Swaminathan Committee report on MSP.
The state assembly had in 2017 passed unanimous resolutions to urge the Centre to fix the MSP of paddy at Rs 2,930 per quintal. The MSP of paddy at present is Rs 1,868 per quintal (common variety) and Rs 1,888 for grade-A variety. Amid allegations of irregularities in paddy procurement in the state, Swain said the Odisha government had procured record amount of paddy this year and assured that all surplus paddy of genuine farmers would be procured after verification by collectors. “While we had procured 53.31 lakh MT of paddy in the last kharif season, this year, we have procured 52.63 lakh MT already. The procurement process will continue till March 31. We have been procuring an average of 54,000 MT of paddy every day,” he said.
As farmers outfits have raised the issue of mismanagement in paddy procurement system, the issue is likely to dominate the forthcoming budget session of the assembly, starting February 18.