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SAYING THAT his government’s annual spend on the agriculture sector and farmers is over Rs 6.5 lakh crore, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Saturday that each farmer is ensured a benefit of about Rs 50,000 every year.
“Yeh Modi ki guarantee hai. Aur maine jo kiya hai, woh bata raha hoon, vaade nahin bata raha hoon (This is Modi’s guarantee. And I am telling you what I have done, not making promises),” said Modi, in an apparent dig at the Congress’s poll guarantees.
Addressing the inaugural session of 17th Indian Cooperative Congress, Modi said that before 2014, small and medium farmers were deprived of government benefits. “You are experiencing the changes that have come from the policies that have been changed, the decisions that have been taken in the last nine years.
Do you remember the demand of farmers before 2014? Farmers used to say that they got very little aid from the government. And whatever little aid was available used to go to middlemen. Small and medium farmers remained deprived of the benefits of government schemes,” he said.
Counter guarantees
THE PM’s remarks, which framed the benefits of government schemes as “guarantees”, come at a time Congress has made “five guarantees” a key poll plank — first in Karnataka and now in MP which goes to polls this year.
“This situation has changed in the last nine years. Today, crores of small farmers are getting the PM Kisan Samman Nidhi. No more middlemen, no bogus beneficiaries… In the last four years, Rs 2.5 lakh crore has been transferred directly in bank accounts of farmers,” said Modi. In contrast, he said, the total agriculture budget of five years before 2014 was less than Rs 90,000 crore.
“Farmers are not burdened with increase in the prices of fertiliser and chemicals across the world. This has also been guaranteed. This is Modi’s guarantee, which the BJP government at the Centre has given you,” he said.
The PM asked cooperatives to become a model of transparency and corruption-free governance, and help the country become self-reliant in cooking oils. The PM also mentioned the recent PM-PRANAM scheme which aims to propagate chemical-free farming and promote the use of alternative fertilisers.
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