Centre will work to resolve farmers’ issues: Anurag Thakur

Union minister for information and broadcasting and youth and sports affairs Anurag Thakur on Friday said that meaningful discussions took place in the third round of talks held by the central government with the farmer leaders in Chandigarh.

Union agriculture and farmer welfare minister Arjun Munda, commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal and minister of state for home affairs Nityanand Rai had held talks with farmer leaders on Thursday evening.

Thakur, who spoke to reporters in New Delhi regarding the farmers’ movement, said he is confident that there will be a positive atmosphere on Sunday also when the Union ministers and representatives of farmer organisations are scheduled to hold another meeting. “We will move towards resolving the issues,” he said.

Responding to a question, the Union minister said that no government has done more than what the Modi government has done in the last 10 years on fertiliser, water, procurement at MSP, cheap loans from banks and compensation.

“In 2013-14, when the UPA government was in power, the agriculture budget was ₹27,662 crore. Now the agriculture budget of the Modi government is more than ₹1.25 lakh crore. At that time, there was no Kisan Samman Nidhi. We have transferred ₹2.81 lakh crore directly to the bank accounts of over11 crore farmers through Kisan Samman Nidhi,” he added. Thakur said that under the crop insurance scheme of the UPA period, farmers did not get anything, but they have received compensation of more than ₹1.5 lakh crore under the Modi government. Out of 10,000 FPOs, 8,000 have been formed and lakhs of farmers have also joined it, he said.

On MSP, the minister said that during the Congress regime, the total purchase of wheat, paddy, pulses and oilseeds was ₹5.50 lakh crore. “The Modi government made purchase of ₹18.39 lakh crore. This shows that we not just hiked the prices but also doubled the purchases,” he said, adding, “If you compare our performance in any other areas, Congress will look completely pale in that too.”

He also hit out at the Aam Aadmi Party, stating, “When the Congress was in power at the Centre, Arvind Kejriwal used to demand that the Punjab government make MSP payouts to farmers. Bhagwant Mann also used to raise a lot of questions. Now, Mann is the chief minister. Will he respond to this (Kejriwal’s) demand?” the senior BJP leader asked.