Prakash Javadekar said he doubts that the protesters were real farmers.
Panaji:
Union Minister Prakash Javadekar alleged on Sunday that parties opposing the recently enacted farm laws were acting as “middlemen for middlemen.”
Speaking to reporters on the second day of his visit to Goa as part of the ruling BJP’s initiative to raise awareness of farm laws, Prakash Javadekar said that the real situation is that farmers earn less for their produce and customers have than buying them at higher rates. .
Intermediaries raise prices and farm laws address this problem by eradicating these intermediaries, he said.
“Sometimes I feel that the opposition parties have become intermediaries of intermediaries,” he alleged.
Stating that the agitation against farm laws will go away on its own, the minister said: “Falsehood has a limited life, while truth lives forever.”
“Congress and the PNC launched their campaign to protest the agricultural bills. I am going to ask you to look at his manifesto. Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has spoken about such (agricultural) reforms in his speeches. But Congress already has. It has made a U-turn, “he said.
He alleged that opposition parties were spreading the “myth” that the APMC (agricultural product market committees) will be closed under the new laws and that the government will stop buying the product or stop the minimum support price (MSP ). “These are all lies,” said Prakash Javadekar.
The BJP leader also said that the conduct of the opposition leaders in Rajya Sabha on passing these bills was “reprehensible and shameful”.
Referring to a protest by a group of people on their way to the city of Mapusa on Saturday, Prakash Javadekar said he doubts the protesters were actual farmers.
He said that 60 percent of the country’s population is involved in the agricultural sector, but its contribution to GDP (gross domestic product) is 15 percent.
There is a need to increase productivity and also give them markets outside the country to improve their standard of living, he said.
Prakash Javadekar said that when he was in school, the country’s population was 30 million rupees, which has now increased to 138 million rupees, but despite that, there is no shortage of food.
“We are grateful to the farmers who have been feeding our country,” he said, adding that it is the government’s responsibility to increase their income.
The Agricultural Products Trade and Trade (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill of 2020, the Farmers’ Price Guarantee and Agricultural Services (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of 2020 and the Essential Products (Amendment) Bill of 2020 became law after obtaining presidential consent recently.
Prakash Javadekar declined to comment on the issue of the diversion of the water from the Mahadayi River, regarded as the livelihood of Goa, by neighboring Karnataka.
Goa and Karnataka are embroiled in a dispute over sharing the water of the Mahadayi River.
Goa has strongly opposed the Kalasa Banduri project proposed to be built by Karnataka on the river, which aims to provide drinking water to three northern districts of Karnataka by diverting the water from Mahadayi to the Malaprabha River.
When asked about the Center’s silence on the matter, Prakash Javadekar said: “The matter is in court and I will not comment on it. There is nothing pending with us because nothing reaches us. CM will answer questions about it.”
The Supreme Court, in an interim order in February this year, admitted the Karnataka government’s request for the implementation of the final award by a court to share the water between Goa, Karnataka and Maharashtra from the Mahadayi River.
He also said that the provisional order is subject to the final outcome of the petitions filed by the three states against the court’s award.
The Mahadayi Water Disputes Court approved an order in 2018, allocating 13.42 TMC of water (including 3.9 TMC for diversion to the impoverished Malaprabha River Basin) from the Mahadayi River Basin to Karnataka.
Maharashtra received 1.33 TMC of water, while Goa received 24 TMC in the final decision of the court.
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