With talks between the Centre and farmer unions against the brand new agriculture legal guidelines failing to make any headway, and the Supreme Court scheduled to listen to Monday a clutch of petitions associated to the matter, the Punjab authorities mentioned Saturday it had finalised petitions to problem the newly enacted legal guidelines.
Also Saturday, the Consortium of Indian Farmers Associations (CIFA) approached the Supreme Court, searching for to be heard towards the problem to the brand new legal guidelines. It mentioned “farm reforms are beneficial to enable increased income to farmers and growth of agriculture”.
Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh mentioned state Advocate General Atul Nanda had already ready and finalised petitions to problem the three central Acts.
“Since these Acts impact the lives and future of our farmers, all decisions will be taken carefully and judiciously at an opportune time,” the Chief Minister mentioned in an announcement.
He mentioned though issues associated to agriculture are talked about in List II (State List) of the Constitution of India and fall beneath the unique area of the state authorities, the Government of India had enacted the three farm legal guidelines beneath provisions associated to agriculture advertising talked about in List III (Concurrent List).
Being a central laws, the state authorities, he mentioned, had restricted choices beneath Article 254 (2) of the Constitution and it had exercised that with the Punjab meeting passing Bills to amend the central legal guidelines. As per the legislation of the land, any Bill handed by the state meeting, he mentioned, are mandatorily required to be despatched to the Governor who, after learning it, has to grant consent for forwarding them to the President for approval.
Amarinder Singh mentioned the state authorities was following the laid down process and would take remedial authorized motion after exhausting different choices.
He slammed the AAP and different Opposition leaders, and requested them to desist from “lies”. “Unlike you, I don’t consider the present crises being faced by our farmers an opportunity to further any political agenda. It concerns the future and lives of our farmers and I am fully committed to safeguard them,” he mentioned.
Targeting AAP state president Bhagwant Mann, the Chief Minister accused him of “speaking blatant lies” and “making illogical statements with the sole motive of misleading the people”.
He mentioned his authorities’s stand on the Centre’s farm legal guidelines had been constant whereas the AAP and SAD had been “doing flip flops” over it.
“One day you unanimously support our Bills and your party leaders, including Leader of the Opposition, Harpal Singh Cheema, accompany me to the Governor, and the very next day you do a somersault and start opposing them,” he mentioned.
He mentioned AAP’s “double face and its collusion with the BJP to weaken the farmers’ agitation had been further exposed with Arvind Kejriwal meekly notifying one of the farm laws in Delhi rather than following Punjab’s example of bringing in legislations in the assembly to negate the impact of the black farm laws”.
Meanwhile, the Consortium of Indian Farmers Associations (CIFA approached the Supreme Court, searching for to be heard within the problem to the farm legal guidelines.
In a letter addressed to Chief Justice of India S A Bobde and Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian – that is the bench listening to the problem to the legal guidelines and petitions towards protests by farmers — CIFA chief advisor P Chengal Reddy sought instructions to the Government of India “to hold consultations with other farmer associations in other parts of the country before changing any provisions of the Acts”.
Welcoming the brand new legal guidelines, the CIFA mentioned ever since liberalisation, service and trade had grown at 10 per cent whereas the farming sector had remained stagnant at 2 per cent. “It is because of denial of access to modern technologies, lack of investment and restricted markets,” the CIFA mentioned, including that late farmer chief Sharad Joshi and the “National Commission on Farmers (M S Swaminathan Committee report) recommended for reforms including removing restrictions on movement, storage, processing exports” and to “also modify tenancy laws and allow contract farming”.
The CIFA mentioned “farmers producing 321 Million Tons of fruits and vegetables (2019), 26 MT pulses, 33 MT oil seeds, 9 MT cotton millets, 6.42 MT spices” and 282 lakh ton sugar “are suffering due to inability to get profitable returns”.
“We have no procurement facility. Major problems are huge wastage due to lack of storage, processing and exports. Quality also is low due to lack of extension services. Productivity is very low due (to) non-adoption of technologies and rain-dependent farming,” the CIFA mentioned.
It mentioned reforms in APMC will assist a farmer “directly send his product to processing industries, exporters as well as super bazaar. It enables farmers (to) have long-term MoU with markets, wherein farmers will get quality inputs, extension services, credit, crop insurance. It will enable… mutually agreed price. Long-term availability of standardised products will help in planning long term market strategy”.
