At a time of acute agrarian distress, Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke in glowing terms of his government\u2019s schemes and programmes in a video interaction with farmers from nine States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reiterating the government\u2019s promise to double farmers\u2019 income by 2022, Mr. Modi claimed that the budget allocation for agriculture between 2014-19 was \u20b9 2.12 lakh crore, almost double the amount \u2014 \u20b9 1.21 lakh crore \u2014 allocated in the previous five years by the UPA government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Because of the government\u2019s efforts, farmers were now \u201cchinta mukt\u201d or\nworry-free, protected from nature\u2019s fury by insurance schemes such as the\nPradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, he said. Farmers, speaking from Krishi Vigyan\nKendras, also praised various government schemes, with themes by location \u2014\norganic farming in Sikkim, fish farming in West Bengal and crop insurance in\nKarnataka, for example.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nThe event was the seventh in a series of interactions the Prime Minister has\nbeen having with beneficiaries of various schemes. It was described as \u201ca\ndirect dialogue with farmers across the country, in which various initiatives\nrelated to doubling the income of farmers by 2022 will also be discussed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of the 24 farmers who spoke to Mr. Modi during the interaction, only one\nraised any concerns regarding income. Speaking from Shahjahanpur in Uttar\nPradesh, Rajwinder Singh, who has been farming 15 acres of leased land for the\nlast 20 years, told the Prime Minister that guidance on drip irrigation for his\ncrop of melons had improved his returns. Noting the cauliflowers placed on the\ntable in front of the farmer, the Prime Minister commented on their large size.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYes, I have left rice and wheat farming and shifted to vegetables. But\nthere are some problems,\u201d said Mr. Singh. \u201cUnlike the cost of inputs, which go\nup every year, income remains a constant.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At that point, the Prime Minister cut him off with assurances that\ngovernment initiatives were helping farmers on this issue, and asked if any\nother farmer had anything to say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Several critics slammed the scripted nature of the event. \u201cA meaningful\ninteraction with farmers would be to talk to those, whose family member\ncommitted suicide due to agrarian distress or those farmers who have a huge\nburden of debt,\u201d tweeted Congress leader Ashok Gehlot, dismissing the event as\na publicity trick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a misnomer to call that an interaction. It was a pre-scripted TV\nshow, the Prime Minister was the anchor and the farmers were no more than\nprops…Notice that no one asked the Prime Minister any questions,\u201d said\nYogendra Yadav, president of Swaraj India party. He accused the Prime Minister\nof ignoring the reality of the agricultural crisis in the country, where\nfarmers were unable to get minimum support prices for their crops, despite\ngovernment promises. \u201cIn the last four years, the Prime Minister has not once\nuttered the words \u2018farmer suicide\u2019 and he did not do it today either.\u201d\n\n\u201cEven while the Prime Minister was speaking on\nvideo this morning, 25 farmers in Tamil Nadu were being arrested as they\ngathered to protest against the forced acquisition of farmland for the 8-lane\nChennai-Salem highway,\u201d said Vijoo Krishnan, joint secretary of the\nCPI(M)-affiliated All India Kisan Sabha, speaking from that agitation at\nTiruvannamalai in Tamil Nadu. \u201cThis is what is actually happening to farmers on\nthe ground.\u201d\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At a time of acute agrarian distress, Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke in glowing terms of his government\u2019s schemes and programmes in a video interaction with farmers from nine States. Reiterating the government\u2019s promise to double farmers\u2019 income by 2022, Mr. Modi claimed that the budget allocation for agriculture between 2014-19 was \u20b9 2.12 lakh crore, almost […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":2800,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[103,82],"class_list":["post-2799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs-articles","tag-agriculture-current-affairs","tag-economy-current-affairs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2799"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2799\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3667,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2799\/revisions\/3667"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gkseries.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}