Bhopal: In last six years agriculture growth rate has reached 48 per cent, but the poor condition of farmers has also increased manifolds, because the government has not arranged storing capacity and other important facilities for them. The facts came out in the White Paper issued by social organisation Vikas Samwad, here on Wednesday. In the report various aspects of farming and farmers were studied. It is found that from 2001 to 2010 around 85 lakh people have left the farming profession in the country, but the number of labourers has increased to 3.75 crore.
One of the report analysts Rajendra Singh said the data had been collected from government sources. The reports published by the state and Central governments were incorporated. The loan on agriculture has increased several folds. In 2010 farmers had taken loan of Rs 14,307.39 crore from banks. This amount increased to Rs 58,812.49 crore in 2016. It is also found that the state government had taken strange steps to resolve the farmers’ problems and as a result the farmers’ movement occurred in Mandsaur. The government also kept the Centre in the dark about the ground reality of the farmers’ situation.
The state government repeatedly changed statements. Sometimes the antisocial elements were said to have provoked the violence, sometimes the Congress was held responsible for it and now drug peddlers are on target, whereas the state government has itself stated in the replies to MLAs in Vidhan Sabha and Union agriculture minister Purshottam Rupla had stated in their report that the suicides of farmers or cultivators were due to bankruptcy and loan burden. The minister also stated that the farmers’ suicide was increasing due to money lenders’ loan.
The crop insurance had added one more burden on farmers, as the actual profit was received by the companies and not them. From the total amount only 23.17 per cent had been distributed, the report said.
