Hyderabad, December 15: The CPI on Wednesday held the Congress government’s policies solely responsible for the suicides of two lakh farmers in the last 10 years in the country.
Participating in a short discussion on problems faced by the farmers due to heavy rains in the Assembly, the CPI legislator, Mr Sambasiva Rao said that the policies pursued by the successive Congress governments, which have ruled the country most of the time, have caused suicides of farmers in the country. These are all government murders, he said. The CPI leader bemoaned that while the business people and others have liberty to fix prices of their own products, the farmers have no such right to fix the price for their own produce based on production cost. Moreover, the farmers were not provided representation in the Price Fixation Committees, he regretted.
Reminding that the government was extending only Rs 1,800 input subsidy per acre to the damaged crops, he claimed that the farmers would incur Rs one lakh loss due to crop damage in one acre. He wanted the government to compensate the total loss to the farmers. The government should also pass a resolution in the Assembly on the matter and forward it to the Centre, he said, adding that crop insurance scheme should be modified directly benefiting the farmers.
——–NSS