Monday Post

So two bills, -Farmer’s Produce Trade and commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill 2020 and The Farmers (Empowerment and  Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Service Bill 2020 have been passed by both houses of the Parliament, with protests from major opposition parties including  parties who are parts of NDA

For the first bill

Doubts raised by opposing members in Parliament

• Procurement at Minimum Support Price (MSP) will stop.
• Mandis will stop functioning if farm produce is sold outside APMC Mandis.
• What will be the future of govt electronic trading portal like e-nam.

For this clarification issued by Govt is

• Procurement at MSP will continue and farmers can sell their produce at MSP rates.
• Mandis will not stop functioning and trading will continue there as before.
• Under the new system, farmers will have option to sell their produce at other places in addition to the regulated Mandis.
• e-nam trading system will continue in the mandis.
• Trading in farm produce will increase on electronic platforms.

For the second bill

Doubts raised by opposing members

• Farmers will be under pressure and they will not be able to determine prices under contract farming.
• How will marginal and small farmers be able to practise contract farming as sponsors will shy away from them.
• Big companies will be at an advantage in case of disputes.

For this clarification issued by govt is

• Farmers will have full power in the contract to fix sale price of his choice for the produce.
• They will receive payment in 3 days.
• 10,000 Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) are being formed throughout the country. These FPOs will bring together small farmers and work to ensure remunerative pricing for farm produce.
• There will be local dispute redressal mechanism and there will be no need to go to court repeatedly in case of disputes.

The problem with opposition is that they are looking at any bill proposed by Modi govt as  it is going to hurt them in one form or the other. Why this fear in their mind is can not be explained by any one of them openly,  the fact in this case is that most of the politicians are holding big farms, and they are commission agents in farm market produce or they are indirectly involved in running/controlling Mandis/APMCs. By this bill , they will be  indirectly affected financially. But this thing they can not say openly and hence on the pretext that the bill will be harmful to farmers they have started instigating the farmers.

Let us see the case of Ms Harsimrit Kaur Badal, who was Minister for Food Processing in Modi govt, has submitted her resignation from the cabinet, on this issue. She is wife of Sukhbir Singh Badal of Akali Dal, who was Deputy CM in the earlier Akali Dal /BJP govt in Punjab. The fact is Sukhbir Singh is having a company called Sukhbir Agro, and this company is commission agent between Food Corporation of India (FCI) and farmers. His company is earning earn 2.5% commission on every deal, and without Sukhbir Agro’s stamp farmer could not sell even one tonne of his produce to FCI. His company’s annual turnover is Rs 5,000 Cr, and with this bill it is going to be affected drastically.

Similarly Supriya Sule’s ( who is daughter of NCP’s supremo) declared annual agricultural income is Rs 10,000 Cr, and she is involved Grapes, Chilly and Onion farm produce. There is inside news that most of the Congress and NCP leaders in control of various APMCs in Maharashtra state. Earlier when Devendra Phadnavis govt wanted to bring the law for controlling APMC, there were widespread protests all over the state.

It looks like, there may be many other leaders from various parties, who may also been involved in APMCs and Mandis, and hence they are protesting against this bill. The fact is most of political parties in India are offshoot of Congress Party, and this business of APMCs and Mandis is going on for last so many decades. Most of the founding members of the BJP were from Business/trading community, and very few are in the agri business, and hence there have been no internal opposition for this bill in BJP. For last year one year it has been observed that what ever bill is introduced by Modi govt in Parliament, are getting passed in both houses of Parliament , although NDA has not got  majority in Rajya Sabha. What it means some other parties are supporting Modi govt on the bills which are needed by the nation. Congress and its allies parties are in the fashion of opposing any bill introduced by Modi govt.

Awaiting your views/comments/feed backs.

Anil Malik

Mumbai, India

21^st September 2020.