The concept of farm subsidy has apparently failed to grow on the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) — the Centre’s autonomous organisation under its Department of Agricultural Research and Education for coordinating, guiding and managing research and education in agriculture.
Decrying the policy of agriculture subsidy, ICAR director-general Dr S Ayyappan on Monday said that the need of the hour was to provide the “quality inputs, instead of subsidy”.
The development is significant as the Punjab Government is already doling out subsidies to the tune of
Rs 5,607.42 crore as subsidy.
Dr Ayyappan’s assertions, just before the 2014 parliamentary elections at a function organised by the Punjab Government itself, ended up giving the impression that subsidy is more of a populist measure than a manure for the farms.
Only a day before, besides Punjab Chief Minister, his counterparts form Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh along with agriculture Ministers from other States defended the decision to provide agriculture subsidy.
In fact, the move also found backing of the farm experts except Dr Ayyappan.
Dr Ayyappan, after chairing the first technical session of Progressive Punjab Agriculture Summit on the issue of Challenges and the way forward, stressed upon the farmers attending the meet to seek quality inputs instead of subsidy.
In contrast, Punjab Agriculture University’s vice-chancellor Dr BS Dhillon impressed upon to have subsidies, and in fact, pressed for enhancing the same “to promote natural resource management for secured future”.
Subsidies are required to keep the farmers in business…in fact, all States and many other countries provide subsidies. While agriculture subsidies, including fertilizer and power, in Punjab during 2011-12 were Rs 8,675 per acre, it was Rs 8,871 per acre in Haryana, and Rs 7,403 per acre at the national level.
“Countries like Canada, USA, Turkey, Japan, South Korea, are providing huge subsidies in farming sector, with Switzerland providing the maximum,” he added.
ICAR former deputy DG and Chaudhary Charan Singh Haryana Agriculture University’s vice-chancellor JC Katyal maintained that the rise in power requirements for agriculture from 5,105 Mkwh in 1990 to 9,325 Mkwh in 2008 has resulted in escalating subsidy costs which should be checked.
Only recently, the BJP suggested the pruning of power subsidy granted to the “big” farmers across Punjab as it wanted the small and marginal farmers to grow by taking full benefits of the power subsidy granted by the Punjab Government to agriculturists regardless of the financial standings.
The suggestion was opposed by the SAD cadre as the party has a strong base in the rural Punjab, and the suggestion was made just about a year before the parliamentary polls. It defended its decision to provide free power to farmers on the ground that the agriculturists in the State are already debt-ridden and would suffer huge setback if the subsidy was taken back.
Power subsidy to the farmers has remained a topic of debate in Punjab and had even run into criticism on the allegations of being a populist measure. Notwithstanding, the SAD-BJP Government may be wooing a major vote bank — including the farming community, scheduled castes, below poverty line — in Punjab by providing them free power, but the power subsidy is financially ruining the State.
Free power given to nothing less than 11 lakh agriculture pumpsets (AP) consumers, up to 200 units to five lakh BPl families, and 18 lakh SC families in the State.
In addition, the Government has to pay power subsidy in advance in 12 monthly installments.
As of now, the Punjab Government is doling out the subsidies to the tune of
Rs 5,607.42 crore in total. With a major share, the AP consumers is getting whopping
Rs 4,778.13 crore as free power supply for the current fiscal.
In addition, State Government also pay power subsidy for supplying free power up to 200 units per month to SC domestic consumers and non-SC BPl domestic consumers — adding upto Rs 829.29 crore.
The State Government, to promote crop diversification in the State, has set up an expert panel to rationalise prevalent subsidies in the agriculture sector to enable the beneficiaries to reap maximum benefits and strengthen crop diversification programme.
The panel, headed by Punjab State Farmer’s Commission’s chairman GS Kalkat, would examine the existing subsidies given to farmers for mechanisation of agriculture and supplying pesticides to genuinely benefit the farmers.