On the occasion of the Farmers’ Day, the Samajwadi Party staged a rally in front of the State Assembly demanding facilities and incentives to farmers to check farmer suicide in the State. later, a delegation handed over a memorandum to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik regarding the problems of the farmers.
More than 200 farmers led by Samajwadi Party State Committee president Rabi Behera came in a procession from Master Canteen to the lower PMG shouting slogans. The farmers flaunted their traditional farming instruments during the rally.
In the memorandum, Behera mentioned that the farmers of the State were facing many problems, including crop loss due to natural calamity, lack of irrigation facilities, artificial shortage of seeds and low quality seeds, black marketing of fertilizers, lack of awareness on application of modern technology in agriculture, lack of cold storage, distress sale of agriculture produce like paddy and insensitive attitude of field workers of the Agriculture department and bankers.
He urged the Chief Minister to give a monthly pension of Rs 3,000 to the farmers to check the rising suicide among them.
He also requested that the State Government to implement the crop loss insurance extensively and provide loan to the farmers with zero per cent interest, a bonus of Rs 250 per quintal of paddy and immediate action against private and public sector banks, who violate the RBI guidelines in lending agricultural loans to the farmers. Behera demanded a CBI inquiry into the chit fund scam as most people from the farming class have been duped.