Prime Minister Narendra Modi reiterated Monday that the minimum support price system (MSP) and the purchase of food grains will continue under the latest agricultural sector reforms that seek to liberalize agricultural markets. NDA alliance partner and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar backed the reforms amid protests from the opposition.
“I want to assure farmers that the minimum price of sustenance and government purchase of their products will continue,” said PM Modi.
The prime minister’s statement followed the launch of work on nine national highway (NH) projects in Bihar and the ambitious project to connect villages with fiber optic networks to ensure high-speed Internet facilities via video conferencing from Delhi.
Accusing the opposition of misleading farmers about the new agricultural reforms, Prime Minister Modi said that some people were creating a scandal by seeing their interests hampered as the Center’s move to empower farmers.
“The agricultural mandis will not be closed. Instead, the new reform would allow farmers to obtain maximum benefits by selling their products in the market that they find best for their products ”, stressed the prime minister.
Dismissing the opposition’s claim that farmers’ interests would be compromised as a result of the reforms, Prime Minister Modi clarified that land ownership would not be affected due to their direct access to large players in the agricultural sector. By contrast, those engaged in contract farming would be responsible for protecting farmers ‘property, organizing modern technological intervention and serving other farmers’ needs, he said.
Opposition parties have been protesting new reforms initiated by the passage of two agricultural sector laws in Rajya Sabha on Sunday. Congressional leader Rahul Gandhi, in a series of tweets, alleged that the Center was working under a design to enslave farmers to capitalists.
The prime minister laid the foundation stone for three four-lane bridges, two in Ganges and one in Kosi, and the expansion of six sections of the national highway (NH) was executed at a cost of Rs 14,258 crore. Up to 45,945 towns in the state will be connected through fiber optic Internet service under the project that was launched today.
In a series of events earlier this month, the prime minister laid the first stone or inaugurated plans worth more than 1.7 billion rupees in Bihar ahead of the assembly elections.
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar praised the prime minister for introducing the agricultural sector reforms and said that in 2006 he abolished the Agricultural Products Marketing Committee (APMC) law, which in no way favored farmers.
“The people of Bihar are unfazed by the campaign launched by the opposition. Rather, they are happy to see the developments taking place in Bihar under the leadership of Prime Minister Modi, ”said the CM, adding that the people of the state would give an appropriate response to the unworthy acts that the opposition resorted to in Rajya Sabha.
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