States pull out a stock of sops and promises to woo the disgruntled farmer

What's on offer: Separate agricultural budgets, free water, stepped up direct transfers and a lot more

Amid the ongoing farmers protest in several states against the three laws and the demand for legalising the Minimum Support Price (MSP) mechanism, several state governments have announced measures to woo the farming community in their annual budgets the past few weeks.

The Central government too, in its latest Budget, had assured farmers the MSP mechanism would continue and also laid down a report card on its commitment towards the same during the past few years.

However, none of its efforts have yielded tangible results so far, as farmers continue with their protest schedule.

It remains to be seen how far the efforts made by the state governments yield results in the coming days and whether they manage to placate the agitators.

The big ones will be state budgets of Punjab and Haryana, which are the epicentre of the current agitation and does the state governments address the concerns. Their budgets are expected in the coming weeks.

Uttar Pradesh

Uttar Pradesh was the last to see a big movement against the three farm acts. But the events of January 26 and the subsequent outburst of prominent Bhartiya Kisan Union (leader) Rakesh Tikait has galvanised the protestors and massive rallies and panchayats are being held at the village level in most of western UP.

Mounting sugarcane dues and status quo on the state administered price for the past three years has further aggravated cultivators, pushing them to join hands with the agitators and encouraged them to voice their grievances.

The UP government in its budget presented a few weeks ago tried to assuage some of the concerns by allocating a sum of Rs 700 crore to free water facility to farmers.

While not much is known about the details of the scheme, sources said it will be free for water drawn from government sanctioned borewells and tubewells.

Farmers groups say water bills for irrigation have risen manifold in the past few years and the monthly power outgo for an average 3 HP irrigation pump will be in excess of Rs 680. This is a 3x rise over the past few years.

That apart, Rs 600 crore has been allocated for the Chief Minister’s Accident Welfare Fund, which will henceforth include landless farmers and farm labourers.

For sugarcane farmers, the state government has decided to set up a new distillery with a capacity of 120 kilolitres a day in Pipraich sugar mill. The distillery will start in December 2021.

There will be a facility to manufacture ethanol.

Pipraich Mill will be the first sugar mill in North India to manufacture ethanol directly from sugarcane juice.

That apart, the crushing capacity of Mohiuddinpur-Meerut Sugar Mill of the UP State corporation area was increased to 3,500 Tonnes Crushed Per Day (TCD) from 2,500 TCD.

A target to raise the crushing capacity of Mohiuddinpur-Meerut Sugar Mill from 3,500 TCD to 5,000 TCD is proposed to benefit 100,000 cane farmers in the state, largely from that region.

Madhya Pradesh

Though the current farmers’ agitation has not spread in Madhya Pradesh in the same manner as it has in other parts of North India, experts said a big reason for this is the prices fetched for some crops grown in kharif season this year have been better than previous years, while farmers in MP are also less organised than their counterparts in Haryana and Punjab.

The Madhya Pradesh government in its Budget allocated a sum of Rs 3,200 crore to provide an additional Rs 4,000 per year to all the beneficiaries of PM Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana (PM-KISAN).

Under the PM-KISAN scheme, beneficiaries across the country have been provided a sum of Rs 6.000 a year to meet their requirements of seed and fertilisers and other farm inputs. The scheme was launched in 2018, just ahead of the 2019 General Elections and so far around 110 million farmers have received atleast one installment.

With the top-up by the MP government, the total disbursals for farmers will be Rs 10,000 per annum.

The top-up plan was announced ahead of the crucial by-polls to the state assembly. which the ruling BJP won comprehensively.

MP has around 7.8 million PM-KISAN beneficiaries of which 5.8 million (75 per cent) have been provided the top-up amount in FY21 itself while the work for covering the remaining farmers in this year is still one, the state government’s statement said. 

The state government has also made a provision of Rs 1,000 crore towards interest-free loans from cooperative banks to farmers.

It has also decided to provide Rs 2,000 crore for Chief Minister’s Crop Procurement Programme under which procurement agencies such as cooperative societies etc will be strengthened.

MP had procured a record almost 13 million tonnes of wheat from farmers in FY-21, surpassing Punjab as being the biggest contributor to the Central pool. In FY22, it plans to procure even higher 13.5 million tonnes of wheat.

Rajasthan

Rajasthan, where massive farm protests against the three laws began gathering more steam after the January 26 incident, has decided to come up with a separate agriculture budget from the coming financial year.

That apart, the Congress-led government of Ashok Gehlot has allocated a massive Rs 16,000 crore for the farm loan waiver scheme that it started after coming to power and plans to bring an additional 300,000 farmers into its fold in the coming year.

The state government also made a provision of Rs 16,000 crore for subsidised electricity to farmers and a new agriculture distribution company has also been proposed in the Budget. 

Chhattisgarh

Chhattisgarh has been relatively untouched by the farm protests so far, though it has seen sporadic incidents of protests.

The state in its Budget has announced the expansion of the Godhan Nyay Yojana, under which the state provided a remuneration to farmers and cultivators for supplying cow dung for farmers. The state's agriculture sector registers a record growth of 4.6 per cent in FY-21. The Godhan Nyay Yojana has been a great success and both Centre and state governments have appreciated the innovative scheme and are looking to adopt the Godhan Nyay Yojana

Reports said more than 71,300 quintals of vermicompost produced by Self Help Groups has been formed since the start of the scheme. That apart, more than 4 lakh quintals of forest produce have been purchased by the state govt last year.

The Budget also said that the fisheries sector will be granted the same status as agriculture.

What Centre did for farmers in the Budget

With thousands of farmers protesting in Delhi borders since the last few months, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has expected to assure their sentiments in her budget speech of Fy-22.

She responded by laying down a statement on the Modi government’s track record on grain procurement compared to its predecessors along with an announcement to allow APMCs access to the Rs 100,000 crore Agriculture Infrastructure Fund (AIF).

IN terms of allocation, though there was little for the farm sector as the total budget for agriculture and allied sector was pegged at Rs 148,301 crore in FY-22, up just 2.02 per cent from the revised estimate of Fy-21.

For AIF, too, the Budget has allocated a sum of Rs 900 crore in FY-22. The AIF guidelines provide for an interest subvention of 3 per cent per annum for a maximum loan limit of Rs 2 crore to be repaid over seven years.

“Overall, it is a status quo budget for the agriculture sector in general and seed industry in particular,” said Ram Kaundinya, Director General of Federation of Seed Industry of India (FSII).

Meanwhile, Sitharaman further said 1,000 more mandis will be integrated with the electronic national market and the agriculture infrastructure fund would be made available to APMCs to augment infrastructure facilities.

Meanwhile, sharing the procurement data, Sitharaman said that in case of wheat, the total amount paid to farmers in 2013-14 was Rs 33,874 crore while in 2019-20, it was Rs 62,802 crore. In 2020-21, she said the amount paid to farmers is over Rs 75,000 crore.