Hyderabad, December 19: Telugu Desam Party president N Chandrababu Naidu has urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to make farming a remunerative enterprise and thus prevent the farmers from committing suicides.
The TDP chief, who is on a fast demanding a fair deal for the farmers, wanted the Prime Minister to prevail upon the AP government to respond to the agrarian crisis compounded by the recent rains that battered the crops and provide succour to them.
The TD leader wanted the prime minister’s intervention for the Central agencies to procure paddy by ensuring minimum support price to the farmers.
As an emerging world power, India could afford to focus on agriculture by making significant allocation in the budget to strengthen the rural economy.
Heavy public investments in agriculture and a policy regime to ensure competitive prices for both inputs and products are important to make agriculture a sustainable livelihood, the letter said.
He said what merited attention now was a re-look at the insurance and input subsidy provided to farmers.
The government relief was, in fact, not giving any respite to farmers and insurance claims are quite uncertain and inimical to the interests of farmers.
In case of agricultural credit, non-institutional sources still predominate the rural credit scene which is further worsened by the entry of micro finance institutions.
He said what was disturbing was the move to reduce subsidy on fertilisers and imposing cap on domestic agricultural prices through negative export-import policies.
–Agencies