Union Minister Anurag Singh Thakur on Friday said the Government had invited farmer organisations for talks and several farmer leaders came and very meaningful discussions took place.
“We together have scheduled the next talks for Sunday. I am confident that there will be a good atmosphere on Sunday also. There will be talks and we will move towards resolving the issues,” Thakur, the Information and Broadcasting and Youth and Sports Affairs Minister, said talking to the media.
Responding to the work done by the Centre, Thakur said no government has done more than what the Modi government has done in the last 10 years on fertiliser, water, procurement at MSP, cheap loans from banks and compensation.
“In 2013-14, when the UPA government was in power, the agriculture budget was Rs 27,663 crore. Now the agriculture budget of the Modi government is more than Rs One lakh 25 thousand crore which is almost five times more agriculture budget than the UPA period. At that time there was no Kisan Samman Nidhi, we have transferred Rs 2 lakh 81 thousand crore directly to the bank accounts of more than 11 crore farmers through Kisan Samman Nidhi,” Thakur explained. Thakur further while talking on MSP said during the time of previous regime,the total purchase of wheat, paddy, pulses and oilseeds was Rs 5,50,00 crore. Modi government made purchase of Rs 18 lakh 39 thousand crore. That means almost three and a half times more. This shows that we increased the prices and also made purchases more than double,” he added.
Thakur same time wondered how Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann would respond to the farmer’s agitation when the AAP had once demanded that the state governments pick up the tab for giving the MSP.
He reminded the AAP leadership that they wanted the state government to make payments towards MSP when the Congress was in power at the Centre.
“When there was a Congress government at the Centre, Arvind Kejriwal used to demand that the Punjab government make MSP payouts to the farmers. Bhagwant Mann also used to raise a lot of questions. Now, Mann is the chief minister. Will he respond to this (Kejriwal’s) demand?” the senior BJP leader asked.
