Centre follows Mamata's scheme to provide better returns to farmers
Kolkata: Union Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman echoed Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's thoughts in terms of ensuring a middlemen-free supply chain for the farmers, something that the latter had done six years ago, making distress sale of agricultural produce a matter of the past.
Sitharaman on Friday proposed a set of amendments to the Essential Commodities Act to enable better price realisation for farmers in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak. One of the aspects of the proposed amendment is to enable farmers to get the price they want of their produce. However, there was no clear message in her speech about the infrastructure that would be needed to ensure the same.
Keeping the state much ahead, it was in 2014 when the Chief Minister had introduced the 'Sufal Bangla' scheme through its Agriculture Marketing department that has come up as a major infrastructure with the creation of a smooth supply chain using which farmers directly sell vegetables at the right price. It helped in doing away with the system of middlemen who used to rule the agricultural markets for generations.
"Continuous market intervention" under the project helps farmers in getting the right prices for their produce. Besides regular direct procurement from farmers, the authorities get involved whenever they receive information that a cluster of farmers in any part of Bengal is not receiving the right price for their produce and a section of middlemen is trying to utilise the situation to procure the same at a very low rate.
"In such a scenario, if one farmer starts selling produce in distress at a lower rate than others also get compelled to sell it at the same lower price, sometimes even by incurring losses. But such incidents are now a matter of the past in Bengal as whenever such a situation arises, the state Agriculture Department intervenes and procures the crop at the right price checking distress sale and preventing the farmers from incurring a loss," said a minister.
There was a revenue generation of around Rs 20 lakh per day with sale of agricultural produce mainly potatoes and vegetables through 241 Sufal Bangla stalls in both North and South Bengal. The same, that was around Rs 12 lakh per day earlier, has doubled with an increase in the number of stalls by 106 in just two months. Farmers receive 80 to 85 per cent of the total revenue generation and they don't have to depend on any middlemen to sell their produce.
In connection with the Centre's proposal of the stock limit being imposed only under exceptional circumstances, a Trinamool minister said: "This is in no way going to help farmers. Instead, the move is intended to facilitate bigger investors and business houses in controlling the agriculture sector leaving high possibilities of corruption. The Centre is just utilising COVID-19 lockdown to introduce the same."
