The State Secretary of Aam Admi Party (AAP) Akshay Hunka said that Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan could not foresee the problem the farmers are facing with the rates of onions. The AAP under the leadership of Hunka, gheraoed the residence of State Agriculture Minister Gauri Shankar Bisen on Thursday.
Hunka said that the farmers had to bear a lot of loss in past few years due to bad crop and many of them committed suicide. This year thousands of farmers planted onions and the harvest was good and the farmers were overwhelmed. But these farmers are getting very low rates (50 paisa /kilogram) for their crop in the market. At this rate they can’t even gain the invested amount and are forced to throw it on streets.
He further said that in a programme it was announced by the Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan that the government will buy the onions directly from the farmers at the rate of Rs six per kilogram which is much less than their investment. The minimum cost must be Rs 10 per kilogram. The announcement was a part of the ‘Market Intervention scheme.’ As per this if a crop is produced in high quantity and the State government buys it and if that crop gets spoiled then the Central government will give 50 per cent of the amount he added.
This scheme was not implemented until the Central Agricultural Minister Radha Mohan Singh came in front of the media and asked the States to send their proposals for this scheme. If this scheme was implemented before, it could have saved the farmers from throwing their crops on roads.
He further said that either, Chouhan and Bisen do not know anything about the schemes available or they do not care about farmers problems.