New Delhi: At a time when the agitating farmers are demanding the repeal of the three new farm laws enacted by Parliament, the chief economist of the Washington-based world financial institution International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said these agricultural laws have the potential to increase farmers’ income.
But there is also a need to provide a social safety net to the vulnerable cultivators, Gita Gopinath said, according to media reports on Wednesday.
Indian agriculture needs reforms in multiple areas, including infrastructure, she said.
The three farm laws, enacted by Parliament in September 2020, have been projected by the Centre as a major set of reforms in the agriculture sector that will remove middlemen and allow farmers to sell their products anywhere in the country.
Gopinath said: “These particular farm laws were in the area of marketing. It was widening the market for farmers. Being able to sell to multiple outlets besides the mandis without having to pay a tax. And this had the potential to raise, in our view, farmers’ incomes”.
“That said, every time reform is put in place, there are transition costs. One has to make sure and pay close attention to that it’s not harming vulnerable farmers, to make sure that the social safety net is provided. Clearly, there is a discussion right now and we’ll see what comes out of it,” she said.
Thousands of farmers in India, mostly from Punjab, Haryana, and western Uttar Pradesh, have been camping at several Delhi border points since November 28 last year, demanding a repeal of the farm laws and a legal guarantee on Minimum Support Price (MSP) for their crops.
So far, 11 inconclusive rounds of talks have taken place between the government and farmer leaders with both sides hardening their positions.
In the last round of talks, the government even offered to suspend the laws for 18 months and form a joint committee to find solutions, in return for protesting farmers going back to their respective homes from Delhi borders.
Farmer leaders, egged on by anti-government forces and supported by the Opposition parties, however, said they would settle for nothing less than a complete repeal of the laws, which they claim favor the private sector and a legal guarantee for the procurement of crops at government-fixed MSP.
The Samkyukt Kisan Morcha, an umbrella organization of 41 farmer unions, is leading the protest against the three central farm laws at several border points of Delhi and adjoining areas.
Tuesday’s tractor parade in New Delhi, which was supposed to highlight the demands of the farmer unions to repeal three new laws, dissolved into anarchy in the national capital as thousands of protesters broke through barriers, fought with police, overturned vehicles, and planted a religious flag from the ramparts of the iconic Red Fort.
Watching the situation going out-of-control, the Morcha quickly blamed the restrained police and disassociated itself from those of the rioters. It also claimed that some “antisocial elements” infiltrated their otherwise peaceful movement.
(VP)