Opposition Congress on Tuesday alleged in the State Assembly that both the Narendra Modi Government at the Centre and the Naveen Patnaik Government here are responsible for the miserable life being led by farmers in Odisha.
“This Government has not done anything for farmers during 17 years of rule. The Narendra Modi Government has failed to keep its election promise to support farmers,” said leader of Opposition Narasingha Mishra while participating in a debate on an Adjournment Motion on the related topic.
He blasted the Centre for not giving time to the House Committed to place the unanimous resolution passed in the State Assembly to recommend an increase in paddy MSP.
“The House passed a unanimous resolution to recommend the Union Government to raise the MSP to `2,930 per quintal of paddy. Though the House Committee has sought times to meet the Prime Minister and make him understand the justification behind raising the paddy MSP, the latter is yet to respond. A Prime Minister should not behave like this,” he said.
He then slammed the State Government for proposing to fix MSP with addition of only 25 per cent of cost of production and sitting silent over various problems of famers.
“The farmers are spending `2,344 for production of a quintal of paddy but selling it at `1,550 as fixed by the Centre. And it is also disappointing that they are being forced to sell paddy at `800 to `1,000 a quintal due to procurement failure of the State Government,” alleged Mishra.
Participating in the discussion, BJP’s Pradeep Purohit said the Narendra Modi Government has intiated a number of projects for welfare of the farmers. During UPA Government, there was no increase in paddy MSP while it has been increased twice during the three years of current BJP-led Central Government. He said the State Government has not done anything for welfare of the farmers during its 17 years of rule.
However, Agriculture and Farmers’ Empowerment Minister Dr Damodar Rout refuted the charges saying that the State Government is all concerned about welfare of farmers and has taken a slew of schemes for the purpose.
“The paddy production in Odisha has increased for which the Union Government has awarded the State Government many times.
The provision of loan amount for farmers has increased from 597 crore to 15,000 crore now,” he said.
He slammed the Centre for not raising the paddy MSP and took a dig at the BJP for claiming to win 120 Assembly seats in 2019 general elections.
Dissatisfied over the Minister’s reply, BJP members staged a walkout.