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On a day that saw thousands of farmers pour into the national Capital in protest against the Ordinance, a virtually united Opposition forced an adjournment of the Lok Sabha at the start of Parliament’s winter session. The assault from within Parliament as well as from the streets of Lutyen’s Delhi made led the Congress-headed United Progressive Alliance (UPA) to go into a huddle. |
By noon, the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, was holding an emergency meeting with senior Cabinet colleagues to weather the crisis. Later in the day, the Congress leader, Mr Rahul Gandhi, too, met Dr Singh and the latter reportedly assured him that the Centre was willing to “suitably amend” the Ordinance “if it is in the interest of farmers”. This obnoxious clause is being removed on massive Farmers’ agitation.
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SMPs of sugar cane since 2003-04 are given below :
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SMP of Sugar cane-Rs per quintal
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| Year |
2003-04 |
04-05 |
05-06 |
06-07 |
07-08 |
08-09 |
FRP 09-10 |
| Sugar cane |
73 |
74.50 |
79.50 |
80.25 |
81.18 |
81.18 |
130 |
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There was minimal increase in SMP from 2003-04 to 2006-07 and stagnation at Rs81.18 for the next two years. Cost of labour has doubled and input costs increased by over 50% during the period and the SMP fixed was very unfair and un- remunerative. Hence farmers switched over to farming other crops as sugarcane farming proved to be a losing proposition and sugarcane acreage and supply declined. Therefore sugar production declined as a consequence. States fixed higher SAP for sugarcane. Naturally sugar prices doubled in the process, all because of un-remunerative SMP fixed by government for the past several years.
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For the 2009-10 season (October-September), the Centre has now fixed the FRP at Rs 129.84 a quintal (linked to 9.5 per cent sugar recovery). This is way below the SAPs of Rs 162.5-170 by Uttar Pradesh, Rs 170-180 by Punjab and Rs 175-185 by Haryana.
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| At a press conference, secretary-general of Confederation of Indian Farmers Association’s National Sugarcane Commodity Council P. Chengal Reddy expressed his solidarity with the farmers. He demanded that the support price for sugarcane for this season be set at Rs.295 a quintal for farm gate delivery. This was in conformity with the system suggested by the National Commission on Farmers and with the recent increase in labour and input prices. BL191109 |
Following protests from the Opposition as well as agitating growers, who stormed the national capital by the thousands, t he Centre has decided to take back the contentious Clause. That would effectively restore the powers of States to fix cane prices and, moreover, enforce these on the mills.
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| “Neglect of domestic policies’ hit farm growth” |
Mahendra Dev, Chairman CACP, attributed the poor performance on the agricultural front to the liberalisation policy, the tax and financial policies of the Government. “The Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, and the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, Mr Montek Singh Ahluwalia, contend that industrial liberalisation has had a positive impact on agriculture, but many others aver that globalisation and WTO has had an adverse impact on agricultural production. Financial liberalisation has affected agricultural credit. We need to connect this by addressing supply chain factors such as land and water management, financial credit etc
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Stressing the need for stepping up the incentives offered to farmers for luring public-private investment and institution building for achieving higher growth levels in agriculture, Dr Dev said “recent field visits show that the cost of agricultural production is on the rise because of NREGA. Labour costs are up, diesel prices have shot up. We need to give proper price to the farmer, although it does not guarantee production increase Crop diversification and marketing are equally important issues, he said and switched to emerging issues such as climate change and equity.
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The Steering Group on XIth Five-Year Plan identified some key areas such as declining public private investment, technology reaching a plateau, lack of crop diversification and falling fertiliser consumption for the decline in agriculture growth.
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Potato, onion prices push up food inflation to 14.5% :
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Food inflation rose to 14.55 per cent in the first week of November, fuelled by higher prices of staple items such as potatoes, onions and pulses. On a weekly basis, inflation rose 0.87 percentage points from 13.68 per cent. On a yearly basis, the potato prices shot up by 102.47 per cent, those of onion by 38.24 per cent and pulses by 27.03 per cent. PTI 201109
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| Farm Credit Flow-April-Sep 09 |
Target by March 09- Rs. 3,25,000 Crore
Credit flow up to Sep 09 Rs. 1,38,000 Crore (42.40%)
Commercial Banks Rs. 96,000 Crore(70.00% of credit flow up to Sep 09) |
| Credit growth sluggish at 9.78%; lowest in 12 years : |
During the fortnight ended on November 6, bank loans have gone up by Rs 23,148 crore taking outstanding advances to Rs 28,91,713 crore—an increase of over 9%—the slowest growth in 12 years. According to data from the RBI, credit growth stood at 9.78% or Rs 2,57,677 crore, as on November 6, 2009, as against 9.66% through October 23, 2009, on year-on-year basis. |
According to the RBI data, deposits grew by 18.56%in the same period. The outstanding deposits at the end of November 6 stood at Rs 41, 67,306 crore against Rs 35, 15,029 crore in the corresponding fortnight a year ago. The deposit growth as on October 23, 2009 stood at 19.02%, or Rs 6, 63,819 crore. |
The RBI had noted during the policy that credit growth is unlikely to meet 20% target but projected a growth of 18% for the same. At the same time, aggregate deposits of scheduled commercial banks are projected to grow by 18%. The RBI had urged the bankers to step up their efforts towards credit expansion while preserving credit quality, which is critical for revival of growth. fe Bureau Nov 19, 2009 |
