Budget 2022: Farmers were keenly following the budget as it's the first after their massive protests.
Farmers are disappointed with the meagre announcements made for them during today's budget speech by the finance minister, a prominent farm leader who was involved in last year's protests said. Farmers across the country were keenly following the budget speech with a lot of hope as this is the first one after the massive year-long protest ended with several promises made by the centre but the finance minister spent barely two and a half minutes on us in the entire speech, the leader said.
Swaraj India chief Yogendra Yadav has accused the government of being vengeful to farmers for their massive protests and punishing them in the budget. "This government is humiliated and angry over their defeat and is punishing the farmers. Earlier budgets at least had some perfunctory dialogues and announcements for farmers, even if they didn't get any money. This budget has given them silence and sent a clear message that they can get lost," Mr Yadav said.
They also slammed the government for making announcements that are payment obligations sound like a favour to the farmers.
"Agriculture employs more than half the working population in the country, yet the centre paid little attention and did not deliver on its promises to farmers including that of doubling farmers' incomes," Yudhvir Singh, General Secretary of the Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU) told NDTV. Mr Singh was a key leader during the farmers' protest and was part of the team of farm leaders who had several meetings with the government on farmers' issues.
On the promise of doubling incomes, Mr Singh said that farmers were earning Rs 8,059 when the government promised doubling farmers' incomes in 2016. "The target was set at Rs 21,146 for the year 2022. A government report from 2019 showed an income of around Rs 10K. That's just a Rs 2,000 increase. The latest data shows a total income of around Rs 12,200 for farmers. What can be more disappointing than this?" he said, adding that they were hopeful that the government would announce schemes to achieve this target income.
Mr Yadav said the government was silent on several key issues regarding farmers that are worrisome. "They have been saying we have an agriculture investment fund of Rs 1 lakh crore but they have spent just Rs 2,500 crore so far. They had announced Rs 6,000 per month under the PM Kisan scheme, which was reduced to Rs 5,000 due to inflation. It was supposed to be increased. The crop insurance scheme has been dropped by all states, the number of beneficiaries has gone down," he said in a video posted on his Twitter account. He also flagged the slashed budget allocation to the rural employment guarantee (NREGA) scheme at a time when states have dues of more than Rs 15,000 crore, the decreased procurement under MSP and a drop in the number of beneficiaries of schemes.
There has been an increase of just Rs 25 in five years on sugarcane procurement, Mr Singh added. "This government always claims that they have procured more foodgrains than the previous government. That's not a favour to us. We gave you the product and you reimbursed us for it, it's not a handout. First, you took our products and then paid for them after a year. Rules say that we should get interest if payments are delayed for 15 days. We did not get any interest. You paid us what was due to us, what was owed to us a year back Now, they are using it in election speeches as an achievement," he said.
The government does not have the capacity to procure all of our produce on MSP and we don't expect them to, he said and pointed out that it procures less than 8 per cent right now. "The government can force the markets to procure the rest at a fixed MSP," he said.
Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman today announced some measures for farmers like promoting natural farming, new river linking projects for better irrigation and Minimum Support Price (MSP) payments worth around 2.37 lakh crore rupees. However, farmers say that the budget was disappointing and their core issues like MSP still remain unresolved despite their long protests and the earlier promises of the government.
Mr Singh said that the farmers were hoping for announcements that would be instrumental in the government fulfilling its promises of doubling their incomes, guarantee of procurement on MSP as calculated by the Swaminathan Commission and market regulation in their interest.
Budget documents show a sharp cut in several subsidies including on fertiliser, down from Rs 1.40 lakh crore last year to Rs 1.05 lakh crore in the coming fiscal year. Subsidies on food and petroleous have also been slashed.