Ahead of Chief Ministers Subgroup meeting, West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee highlights need to waive institutional loans to farmers

Kolkata: West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday urged a group of chief ministers, set up by the Centre, to consider the need to waive institutional loans of farmers and the formation of adequate budgetary provision for it by the union government.

The central government on 19 June constituted a chief ministers’ sub-group to coordinate policy approaches for agriculture and the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), with Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan as its convener.

Stating that she would not be able to attend the subgroup’s scheduled meeting in New Delhi on Thursday as the invitation reached late, Banerjee wrote to Chauhan mentioning her suggestions.

“Institutional loans of farmers, especially small and marginal farmers, need to be waived and adequate budgetary provision for the same has to be made by the Union Government,” she wrote to Chauhan.

“All attempts have to be made to increase the income of the farmers substantially within the shortest possible time and for this purpose, all the programmes of the Government have to be converged on farmers’ welfare,” Banerjee suggested.

She also stressed on the need to increase the 100 days’ work under MGNREGS to another 100 days for “better convergence of agriculture and horticulture sectors for enhancements of farmers’ income and livelihood”.

The Trinamool Congress supremo suggested that a minimum support price (MSP) for procurement of major crops of different states must be declared and an institutional mechanism may be put in place to ensure that the farmers get the MSP.

“All the farmers including landless farmers or labourers, engaged in farming need to be covered under Kisan Credit Cards and the average loan given to each Kisan Credit Card holder should start from Rs 2 lakh,” her suggestions read.

Citing the example of the Bengal’s government’s ‘Jal Dharo Jal Bharo’ scheme, she stated that schemes for recharging groundwater should be taken up as a priority through convergence with the schemes for water harvesting and “MGNREGS funds should be used along with other departmental funds for this purpose.”

She also suggested on the necessity of providing subsidy on exports of farmers’ produce.

Apart from Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal, the chief ministers of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Sikkim along with the NITI Aayog member Ramesh Chand are the members of the sub-group.