Farmers badly hit by demonetisation, admits Agriculture Ministry
Millions of farmers in India were unable to buy seeds and fertilisers for their winter crops because of demonetisation, according to a report submitted by the Union Agriculture Ministry to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance.
This official acknowledgement of the impact of demonetisation comes on a day when Prime Minister Narendra Modi, speaking at a rally in Jhabua, Madhya Pradesh, said that he used the “bitter medicine” of demonetisation to bring back money into the banking system and to give “proper treatment to deep-rooted corruption system” in the country.
The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance, headed by Congress MP Veerappa Moily, was on Tuesday briefed on the impact of demonetisation by the Ministries of Agriculture, Labour and Employment, and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises.
‘Not enough cash’
The report submitted by the Ministry of Agriculture, reviewed by The Hindu, said that demonetisation came at a time when farmers were engaged in either selling their Kharif crops or sowing the Rabi crops. Both these operations needed huge amounts of cash, which demonetisation removed from the market. “India’s 263 million farmers live mostly in the cash economy,” the report said, adding, “millions of farmers were unable to get enough cash to buy seeds and fertilisers for their winter crops. Even bigger landlords faced a problem such as paying daily wages to the farmers and purchasing agriculture needs for growing crops.”
Failed to pick up
Even the National Seeds Corporation (NSC) failed to sell nearly 1.38 lakh quintals of wheat seeds because of the cash crunch. The sale failed to pick up even after the government, subsequently, allowed the use of old currency notes of ₹500 and ₹1,000 for wheat seed sales.
Sharp questions
According to sources, the Standing Committee sent the team of bureaucrats from the Agriculture Ministry packing because the Secretary, Agriculture, did not show up.
Many of the Opposition members raised sharp questions during the meeting. According to sources, All India Trinamool Congress’ Dinesh Trivedi asked if the government was aware of a report by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), which stated that 1.5 million jobs were lost during January-April 2017 post-demonetisation.
The Labour Ministry filed a laudatory report on demonetisation.
The Ministry said that comparisons of quarterly employment surveys (QES) for the periods just before and after demonetisation revealed an increase of 1.22 lakh and 1.85 lakh respectively in the fourth and fifth round of the QES, in the total employment for establishments with 10 or more workers.
Farmers’ distress is an important issue in three of the five States that are facing Assembly poll: Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.
Courtesy: www.thehindu.com
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
EC demands extra security as unrest grips Bangladesh afresh
Dhaka (PTI): The Election Commission (EC) has demanded extra security for its chief, other commissioners and officials as fresh unrest visibly gripped Bangladesh after gunmen shot an upcoming parliamentary polls candidate and frontline leader of last year's violent street movement dubbed 'July Uprising'.
"The EC has written to the Inspector General of Police (IGP) urging comprehensive security arrangements for the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), Election Commissioners (ECs), senior officials of the Election Commission Secretariat," the state-run BSS news agency reported on late Saturday.
The EC simultaneously sought the extra security for its field-level offices ahead of the 13th national election, as two of them came under attack in southeastern Lakshmipur and southwestern Pirojpur by unidentified miscreants after the announcement of the schedule for the upcoming polls on Thursday.
The commission demanded an additional escort vehicle for the CEC, while one such police escort with a vehicle was currently in place for him. It asked for round-the-clock police escorts for the four commissioners and the senior secretary.
The letter said the enhanced security measures were "urgent and necessary," while EC officials said their 10 regional offices, 64 district election offices and 522 sub-district level offices would store important documents and election materials.
The EC on Thursday said the upcoming parliamentary election would be held on February 12 next year, while a day later, Sharif Osman Hadi was shot from a close range in the head, critically wounding him, as he initiated his election campaign from a constituency in the capital.
Critically ill former prime minister Khaleda Zia's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) simultaneously asked Muhammad Yunus' government to provide security for all candidates in the upcoming election after the attack on Hadi, who leads a radical right-wing cultural group called Inquiab Mancha.
"We demand that the real culprit be identified immediately and brought under the law, and we call upon this government to ensure the security of all candidates without delay," BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said.
Hadi was also a frontline leader of last year's student-led violent uprising that toppled then-prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League government on August 5, 2024.
His Inquilab Mancha was also at the forefront of a campaign to disband the Awami League, which the interim government complied with in May this year, disqualifying the party from contesting the polls.
The government on Saturday ordered a nationwide security clampdown called 'Operation Devil Hunt 2' amid escalated fears over the law and order situation and promised to issue firearms licenses for election candidates for their own security.
Home adviser (retd) Lieutenant General Jahangir Alam Chowdhury said the government had taken steps to ensure special security for the "frontline fighters" of the July Uprising and promised to issue firearms licenses for the election candidates.
He emphasised that the second phase of the 'Devil Hunt' was aimed at helping ensure public safety and combat the growing threat of illegal arms.
The operation was initially launched in February this year following protests over an attack on the private house of a former minister of the ousted government in the northern suburb of the capital, when it targeted alleged "henchmen" and supporters of the now disbanded Awami League.
