leads MPs’ delegation, asks for interim relief of Rs 5,000cr; submits memorandum
BJP MPs from Madhya Pradesh, led by leader of Opposition in the lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj, on Thursday requested President Pranab Mukherjee to urgently intervene into the huge agrarian crisis in the State due to natural calamities and sought an interim grant of Rs 5000crore.
In a memorandum submitted to the President, the BJP MPs blamed the inaction of the Centre even after the repeated requests by Chief Minister Shivraj Chouhan.
The BJP delegation sought immediate relief package to the farmers suffering from hailstorm and untimely rains, increase in the Minimum Support Price (MSP) for the procurement of grains and immediate action from Centre's agency NAFED in the procurements.
"Madhya Pradesh had experienced massive flooding in the moths of August, September and even October last year due to excessive monsoon rain. This had an adverse effect on our soyabean crop…the Chief Minister has written to the Prime Minister in this regard and made a request that this unseasonal rain and hailstorm in Madhya Pradesh be declared as a National Disaster, and a special grant of Rs 5,000 crore be made available to us as interim relief," said the BJP MPs in the memorandum pointing out the series of inaction from the Centre's side.
BJP MPs also blamed the attitude of the Union Agriculture Ministry and NAFED. "The basic bottleneck is the reluctance of Government of India to provide NAFED with adequate credit limit," the MPs said and requested the President to direct the Centre to instruct NAFED for immediate procurement of gram (chana).
"We have knocked at the doors of the President to come to the aid of farmers who have suffered due to a natural calamity. For the sake of humanity, the Government should rise above petty politics. We have asked the President to intervene to help get justice to Madhya Pradesh," Swaraj said after meeting Mukherjee.
A high-level committee had recommended only Rs 388 crore as relief for the victims, "However, even this amount has not yet been fully released," Swaraj said.
The memorandum signed by BJP MPs Sumita Mahajan, Kailash Joshi, Prabhat Jha, Najma Heptulla and Chandan Mitra also sought for the re-visit of NDRF's prescribed norms for grant of relief and revamping of norms of crop insurance.