Pitching in again to make the party’s Government to toe the party-dictated line on popular causes, the State Congress leadership shot off another letter addressed to the Chief Minister on Saturday, asking him to meet several demands involving the farmers of the State.
The State party president Kishore Upadhyaya led a delegation of the party office bearers to meet the CM at latter’s residence and served the letter to him. The letter lists several demands like waving off the farmers’ loans, halving their electricity dues and announcing minimum support price (MSP) for the crops. A number of the farmers’ representatives also accompanied the delegation to put extra pressure on the State Government.
Among the Congress leaders present at the meeting were the State PCC vice-president Choudhary Mahendra Singh, Kissan Congress leader Puran Singh Rawat, former MlA Jot Singh Ghunsola and Rajendra Shah.
Upadhyaya mentioned in the letter that food grains are the third requirement of life after air and water. However, those who grow food are at the receiving end of indifferent treatment in the State, he regretted, making it clear once again that he was unhappy with the way the Government was running in the State.
He invoked the AICC president Rahul Gandhi to say that things are depressing in the State with the party’s vice president fighting for the cause of the farmers from the roads. “Rahul Gandhi is assuring the suffering farmers receiving a raw deal from the Narendra Modi Government that he would be their voice in the Parliament. This is an imperative, given the fact that the Modi regime is pampering the industrialists who had funded the BJP’s campaign during the general election-2014. Rahul Gandhi has stopped the Centre from grabbing the farmers’ lands through his relentless movement,” Upadhyaya said.
He reminded the CM that the farmers had got reprieve in the form of the UPA regime waiving off the farmers’ loan worth `70,000 crore at the behest of Rahul Gandhi.
PCC president said that the farmers expect the State Government to follow in the footsteps of Rahul Gandhi to provide succor to the farmers. He mentioned that the three demands—waiving off the farmers’ loans, cutting half the electricity bills and announcing MSP for crops—need urgent attention from the State Government. If it acts on these three demands Uttarakhand would the first State to execute Rahul’s pledges on the ground, an inspiring thing that would make others emulate the model, the State Congress chief said.
CM on his part assured the delegation that to address the farmers’ demands, he would constitute a State farmers’ commission (SFC). He further assured that his Government would announce MSP for the locally produced crops while writing to the Centre to do the same regarding other crops. Speaking of the demand to have loans waived off, CM said that he would firm up a policy in sync with the regional banks and would write to the Centre to instruct the union banks to go for the same. Regarding the electricity bill, he said that his Dovernment had already waived off the electricity surcharge while assuring that they would consider halving the amount of the electricity bills accrued to them.
CM further mentioned that Uttarakhand is in the front row among the States in the matter of disbursement of the sugarcane farmers’ due. His Government had disbursed arrears completely while disbursing 80 percent of the dues this year, he claimed, while adding that they had started fencing the farms to save the crops being damaged by the wild animals in the hills. CM said that they had announced promotional prices for chilly, Gahat and others to help the farmers from the hills.
Forest department has built 1,000 khals in the hills while the irrigation department has built 1,000 water reservoirs to facilitate the farmers, CM said. He further said that as many as 40 seeds have seen qualitative transformation thanks to the State Government’s efforts. This has motivated the farmers based in Haridwar to sow high quality Basmati seeds in their farms, CM said.