Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Tuesday reiterated that a Statewide bandh would be observed by the BJP on Thursday if the demand for a relief package of at least Rs 5,000 crore for farmers whose crops were affected by recent hailstorm and excessive rains is not met.
While talking to media persons in the premises of State assembly, Chouhan said, “Besides, me and my cabinet colleagues would stage a sit-in in the state capital to press for the demands.”
He said that the Centre was displaying callous attitude in the matter. He was not provided even five minutes time by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh when he went to meet him in New Delhi. He had to return after meeting President Pranab Mukherjee.
“The Centre should declare the loss as a natural calamity and send a central team to assess the damage. The government made a provision of Rs 2,000 cr for providing relief to affected farmers in the Vote-on-Account. More relief would be provided,” Chouhan asserted.
He said the government had also provided Rs 600 crore as relief to peasants whose soybean crops were damaged recently. A central team had also visited the state and recommended that a relief of Rs 370 crore be provided to the state but the Centre released only Rs 34 crore.
Chouhan said the Centre had committed to purchase gram at minimum support price (MSP) of Rs 3,100 per quintal but was not doing so. Moreover, the price of gram had fallen in local market due to cheap gram coming from abroad because of the Centre's policies to ban import and waiving tax on export.
He criticised the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority's (APEDA) assertion that 'basmati' is not cultivated in Madhya Pradesh.
The Chief Minister also demanded that the Centre release amount for compensation to farmers for damage to soybean crops, buy gram crop at the promised MSP and direct the withdrawal of APEDA's