MSP system will continue, these policies were not anti-Mandis: PM Narendra Modi assures farmers

Image courtesy: ANI

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday (September 21) said the proposed agriculture reform bills will empower the farmers to freely trade their produce anywhere, adding that these Bills are not against the agriculture Mandis. 

The Prime Minister termed the bills as "historic" and said that they would usher in much-needed reforms in India's agricultural sector, while flaying the Opposition that some people were worried that control would slip out of their hands and trying to mislead the farmers on the issue of Minimum Support Price (MSP).

He said, "Yesterday, two farm bills were passed in Parliament. I congratulate my farmers. This change in the farming sector is the need of the present hour and our government has brought this reform for the farmers."

The Prime Minister said this after inaugurating nine infrastructure development projects for Bihar, apart from the launch of "Ghar Tak Fibre" project which aims to provide internet connectivity to villages across the country through optical fibres, through video conferencing.

PM Modi said, "The biggest proof of it is the figures for purchases made by the government during the past five years and the purchases made prior to five years before 2014. If I only talk about the oilseeds and pulses then the purchases by the government have increased by 24 per cent." 

He said, "For this year`s Rabi produce, including wheat, rice, oilseeds and pulses, the farmers were paid Rs 1 lakh 13 thousand crores in MSP. This figure is thirty per cent more than last year`s."

He also spoke about how over the years a nexus had formed in the country which was reaping benefits from the hard work of farmers and was now trying to instigate them against the new reforms introduced by the Centre.

The Prime Minister, however, assured that these policies were not anti-Mandis and stated that his government was committed to their modernisation, adding "The new agriculture reforms has given the freedom to every farmer in the country to sell their produce anywhere. If he gets more profits in the mandi, he will sell it there. If apart from this he gets more profit anywhere else then he is not obstructed from selling them there too." 

"The earlier system of selling the produce, the laws which existed, had kept the farmers` hands tied. Acting under the garb of these laws such powerful groups had formed in the country which have benefitted from farmers` misery. How long should have this allowed to go on?" 

The Prime Minister today inaugurated nine infrastructure development projects, worth Rs 14,000 crores for Bihar, along with the Ghar Tak Fibre Project under which all 45,945 villages of Bihar will be connected through optical fibre internet service.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, his deputy Sushil Kumar Modi, and Union Ministers Ravi Shankar Prasad and Raj Kumar Singh, along with other officials also participated in the meeting through video conferencing.