Ludhiana, September 27, 2020: The central government has passed three bills in Parliament without taking into account the views of stakeholders, i.e. farmers, state governments and others involved in marketing of farm produce. This view was expressed by senior scientists of Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana.
In a statement issued here today they said that the exemption granted to the purchasers on farm produce from paying rural development fund will be detrimental to the development of rural Punjab as this fund was used for construction and maintenance of rural roads.
The removal of limit on storage of essential commodities will lead to hoarding, black marketing and increase in retail prices thereby benefiting the traders at the cost of farmers as well as consumers.
They demanded that these bills should be referred to the Select Committee for reconsideration and suggesting amendments after keeping in view the opinion of stakeholders and removing the anti-farmer clauses. Only the amended bills should be implemented. The implementation of present bills should be stopped till then.
They also suggested the farmers to come forward to boycott the market ready goods by the big capitalists by producing goods required for domestic use by the farmers themselves. For example, textiles, oil, jaggery, sugar, vegetables, pulses, etc. should be produced by the farmers themselves in their own fields to move towards complete boycott of the capitalists/corporate sector.
The signatories to the statement are Dr K.S. Aulakh former Vice-Chancellor PAU; Dr N.S. Malhi former Vice-Chancellor, Guru Kashi University, Talwandi Sabo; Dr Hari Singh Brar former Professor and President PAUTA; Dr S.S. Gill former Director of Extension Education; Dr G.S. Chahal former Dean, College of Agriculture; Dr Darshan Singh former Dean Postgraduate Studies; Dr J.S. Samra former Director Seeds and other retired scientists namely Dr K.S, Sandhu, Dr Balaur Singh Deol, Dr I.M. Chhiba, Dr Gurdip Singh, Dr G.S. Behl and Dr D.R Bakhetia.