The CPI(M)’s All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) on Tuesday blamed the Central Government for the acute shortage of fertilisers and demanded that the Government must bring back the price controls under Nutrient Based Subsidy (NBS) scheme and import adequate quantity of fertilisers through PSUs.
In a statement, AIKS leaders Hannan Mollah and Ashok Dhawale said that the Union Government led by BJP is totally lying on the crisis in the fertiliser supply across the country.
“The Narendra Modi led BJP government has been underplaying the disruption and havoc caused by the Covid-19 pandemic to agriculture and food security of the country. The Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilisers Mansukh Mandaviya denied reports of shortage and termed them as “rumours”. He also put the blame on farmers and appealed them not to hoard fertilisers. AIKS condemns this apathy even as farmers are facing acute shortage of fertilisers.
“The BJP Government has ignored the vulnerability of agriculture and food security, and has been harping on the resilience of farmers and how agriculture continued to grow despite the pandemic and the lockdown. This sab-changa-si (all-is-well) approach has been used to cover the fault lines created by three decades of neoliberal policies, reckless destruction of the economy by the present government and continuing economic distress of the peasantry,” said AIKS leaders.
AIKS alleged that under the privatised and deregulated regime, large scale hoarding and black marketing of fertilizers is going on. On the other hand, farmers are unable to get fertilizers even after standing in long queues for days. “All India Kisan Sabha demands that the Central government should immediately constitute a high-level task force to identify the sources for immediately securing additional supplies of fertilizers, re-introduce price controls for all fertilizers under the NBS scheme, and establish a high-level committee of experts to prepare a roadmap for enhancing the national production of fertilizers and preparing a mechanism to ensure that adequate stocks of fertilizers are maintained,” they said.