Dear Modi ji , Please No Ullu Banaoing to Farmer

Hope You remember this Commercial advt of the Idea cellular. Please watch this 30 Seconds Video where Citizen points out a politician that he is repeating his old unfulfilled promises in his election campaign speech.

The same is Happening in India in reality right now. PM Modi and Agriculture Minister said inParliament, Write tweets and also gave a full-page advertisement in News Papers about the New Bills and MSP promise. But Farmers are not believing the words of PM. Here is the reason for that.

Agriculture Market Development

Budget 2018-19 Speech - Para 17 - We will develop and upgrade existing 22,000 rural haats into Gramin Agricultural Markets (GrAMs). In these GrAMs, physical infrastructure will be strengthened using MGNREGA and other Government Schemes.

Budget 2018-19 Speech - Para 18 - An Agri-Market Infrastructure Fund with a corpus of `2000 crore will be set up for developing and upgrading agricultural marketing infrastructure in the 22000 Grameen Agricultural Markets (GrAMs) and 585 APMCs

After one year of the budget announcement - 6th Feb 2019 , The Cabinet Committee of Economic Affairs:- The Cabinet Committee of Economic Affairs Chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi today gave its approval for the creation of a corpus of Rs. 2000 crore for Agri-Market Infrastructure Fund (AMIF) to be created with NABARD for development and up-gradation of agricultural marketing infrastructure in Gramin Agricultural Markets and Regulated Wholesale Markets.

Two Things are clear form this:-

Agriculture Marketing infrastructure is not a priority for the Government as It was announced in 2018 but yet the progress is not known.
Government just wants to do show off and no actual progress for the Agriculture Marketing infra as the government thinks 9 Lakhs is Enough to develop one agriculture market! ( 2000 Cr for the 22,000 market = 9 lakh per market)

On Minimum Support price:- PM-AASHA to Double Farmer income

2018 Budget speech - Paragraph 12:- For this, it is essential that if the price of agriculture produce the market is less than MSP, then, in that case, the Government should purchase either at MSP or work in a manner to provide MSP for the farmers through some other mechanism.

PM on 3/09/2018 says - The Pradhan Mantri Annadata Aay Sanrakshan Abhiyan (PM-AASHA), approved by the Union Cabinet, will empower farmers and strengthen the Agriculture sector.( PM-AASHA is an umbrella scheme aimed at ensuring remunerative prices to the farmers for their produce.)

Budget 2020 Figures of PM-AASHA allocations:-

Budget allocation 2019 - 1500 Cr.
Revised Budget 2019 - 321Cr

Spend Less than 25% in the scheme which envisaged doubling the income of the farmer.

It is not Just about the Farmers but other section of society also has reasons to not believe in words of Government. The government has changed its color faster than a chameleon on the Issues of the Privatisation of Railways, RCEP, etc. There is no guarantee that the Government will keep its words of the MSP.

Privatization of Railways