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New Delhi: Finance Minister P. Chidambaram's budget bonanza for farmers hit by debts has been hailed nationally but many in the farm sector have their fingers crossed: will the sops really come their way?
Chidambaram's budget proposals, waiving Rs600 billion (Dh54.5 billion) of loans given to farmers, have brought smiles on their faces.
"Finally our finance minister has come out of the air conditioned room to do something for the real India," beamed Ram Saran, a national award winning farmer from Barabanki district of Uttar Pradesh.
According to Chidambaram, Rs600 billion of agricultural loans given by banks and financial institutions to marginal and small farmers would be scrapped. This will benefit as many as 40 million farmers with small plots.
"Rural India is praising the finance minister. Although we do not know much about what there was in the budget, we are happy he showed concern for us," said Ramesh, a farmer from Lakhimpur in eastern Uttar Pradesh. Farmers from Rajasthan are also buoyant.
Crop loss
"We have lost all our crops in the frost. The loan waiver will certainly help farmers like me to stand up again," said Ladu Ram of Shivdaspura area. Organisations working among farmers in Kerala were also euphoric.
"It is a most welcome development. It is heartening that farmers will get waiver from public sector banks which were not so keen about it earlier," said Antony Kozhuvanal, a Catholic priest and general secretary of Indian Farmers Movement.
However, some farmers are apprehensive. "I hope the benefits will go to the real farmers and the schemes do not remain on paper," commented Kabbu, a farmer from Jaipur.
His friend, Banwari, was upset because the finance minister drew a line between big and small farmers. "A farmer is a farmer," Banwari argued. Sharad Joshi, leader of Shetkari Sangathan and Rajya Sabha MP, echoed the same feelings.
"Why has the finance minister distinguished between small and marginal farmers and other farmers? This is like recognising the creamy layer among the farmers.
"The UPA [United Progressive Alliance] refuses to acknowledge the existence of creamy layer among Scheduled Castes. But when it comes to farmers, it promotes the concept of creamy layer. This is a social and not economic criterion," Joshi alleged.
Chennai: Eminent farm scientist M.S. Swaminathan has called the 2008-09 budget "forward looking" and hoped that the Rs600 billion loan waiver would "mark the beginning of the end of the era of farmer suicides".
"[Finance Minister P.] Chidambaram has addressed the major problems faced by our farmers as outlined in the Economic Survey 2007-08," Swaminathan said.
He pointed out that the Survey attributed the loss of dynamism in agriculture to a gradual degradation of natural resources, decline in public and private investment, and technology and extension fatigue.
"The outlay-outcome relationship has been deteriorating in the farm sector because of a lack of convergence among numerous on-going programmes of both central and state governments. Only when the necessary synergy is created will we see the beginning of a new dynamism in agriculture," he said.
"The budget provides a three-pronged strategy to address these issues. First and foremost is the debt waiver and relief involving a total outlay of Rs600 billion," said Swaminathan, who is known as the "father of the green revolution in India". "I am particularly happy that Chidambaram has emphasised that the debt waiver is not just an act of charity but is an expression of the deep debt of gratitude we owe to the women and men who work day and night, in rain and sun, to produce food for the over one billion people of our country and thereby safeguard our national food sovereignty."
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