After Central Govt. now Maharashtra Govt. Budget too failed to address vidarbha agrarian crisis :No relief for food security and health care

After Central Govt. now Maharashtra Govt. Budget too failed to address vidarbha agrarian crisis :No relief for food security and health care to Distressed Dying cotton farmers.
Nagpur-19th march 2008
Today Maharashtra govt. too failed to give any relief to vidarbha cotton farmers after big loan waiver of Indian govt. failed to provide any debt relief to more than 90% vidarbha cotton farmers due it's upper cap to 2 hector and cut off date being 30th march,2007 as it was expected that next being election year maharashtra govt. would restore cotton price or announce the rs.2000 per hector subsidy to cotton farmers but finance minister Maharashtra Jayant Patil failed to address this long pending important issue ,kishor tiwari president of vidarbha jan andolan samiti informed in a press release.the amount shown for irrigation project is part of vidarbha backlog and included in the AIBP hence this is not the relief asked by the cotton farmers.tiwari said.
The vidarbha region has witnessed the more than 20000 r of suicides by debt-ridden farmers in the last ten years of congress-ncp govt. but issue farm suicides is not being addressed due apathy of political parties and negative attitude of babus in the administration as even though state has shown the surplase of rs.400 crore in state budget but failed to relief aid such as food security,health care,food crop incentives free education to ward of distressed cotton farmers in order to stop on going farm suicides in region ,kishore tiwari added. .
Maharashtra govt has not taken any budtory step to help debt trapped vidarbha cotton farmers as "Close to 60 percent farmers in Vidarbha have a landholding of more than two hectares and most of them are in distress on the Maharashtra government's own admission and all such farmers in the region, which has witnessed a large number of suicides by debt-ridden farmers, would be deprived of the benefit announced by central govt "tiwari told..
Pointing out the absence of provisions for increasing farmers' income, price stabilization and incentives for low-cost farming that would have signalled a beginning of the quest for a durable solution to the agrarian crisis, Tiwari also questioned Maharashtra govt,s silence over food security and rural health.
Earlier the annual budget presented by Chidambaram has a farm loan waiver provision of Rs.600 billion intended to extend the benefit to 40 million farmers across the country. The one-time settlement would cover marginal and small farmers whose loans were rescheduled last year. kishor Tiwari's also demanded that a loan waiver up to Rs 50,000 rather than up to two-hectare land holding would have been more appropriate.
"The two-hectare cap would mostly benefit the sugarcane and grape cultivators in western and southern Maharashtra who have smaller land holdings but large-income-yielding agriculture because of the irrigation facility available there," tiwari added.
Kishor tiwari urged UPA Government to restore advance bonus and give rs.2700/- per quintal price as promised in the UPA manifesto. ".
Tiwari said most of the political parties are shedding crocodiles tears over the insult of cotton farmer but they are not talking about finding solution to redress the hardships of the Vidarbha farmers. Presently most of the farmers who are committing suicides are victims of poverty and hunger that has resulted after the economic collapse in the Vidarbha region due ongoing agrarian crisis.
"We demand urgent step to provide food security and health care facilities to these dying farmers before making arguments over farm suicides being agrarian or non-agrarian. Now the time has come to give complete loan waiver and price protection on all agriculture produce from free trade in WTO era to Vidarbha dying farmers", Tiwari added.
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Please arrange to release this press note
Thanking you,
Yours faithfully,
For VIDARBHA JAN ANDOLAN SAMITI
KISHORE TIWARI
PRESIDENT
kishortiwari@gmail.com
contact-09422108846