IMPLICATIONS OF FARM BILLS ENACTED BY THE STATE OF PANJAB

UPDATED ON  5TH  November  2020

Under the Indian Farm Laws that were formally gazetted on the 29^th September 2020 by the Central Government, the Government of Panjab brought four laws in the Panjab Legislature that conflict with the Central laws.  

Out of the 117 legislatures of the Panjab Assembly, these bills were supported by a massive majority of 115 members (except 2 of BJP). Symbolically, that is an extraordinary assertion of the will of the people of the State.  (also refer to my previous blog on Indian Farm Laws).

Primary implications are that—

a)    Agriculture produce and marketing are state subjects under the Indian Constitution, and the central law cannot be sufficient "until notified by the State".

b)    Any purchase of wheat and paddy from the Panjab "below MSP (Minimum Support Price)" notified by the Central Government will be held "void and punishable" under the law up to imprisonment of a minimum of three years and an additional fine.

c)      The State's right to levy fee or tax on the agriculture produce stands protected for improving the farmers' social lot. (Anticipated loss of revenue with the central laws is about Rs 5000 crores annually or $675 million per annum to Panjab)

d)    Merely a PAN – Permanent Account Number for Income tax –will not be sufficient for the buyer to make purchases. The purchaser will require appropriate registration with the state authorities of the Panjab.

e)     The entire State is a Marketing Yard for the procurement of wheat and paddy.

f)      The aggrieved party "will have recourse to the Civil Courts" as per the Indian legal system.

g)     The State of Panjab will "continue to exercise power under the Essential Commodities Act" of the State Government.

Bills enacted by the Panjab Government on 20^th October 2020 require the consent of the Governor of Panjab and the President of India. The popular belief is that such consent may not be endorsed, and therefore the issue may be challenged in the Supreme Court by the Panjab Government. The judicial matter's centrality is whether the Centre can infringe upon the State Government's constitutional rights.

Denial of Panjab's bills of 20th October by the Governor/ President of India will evidence that the Centre intends to "discontinue" MSP (Minimum Support Price) of even wheat and paddy (contrary to verbal promises by the Central Government in the Parliament). That will convey the formal advance message of the likely abrogation of MSP to all, including the farmers in the State of Panjab and elsewhere that will ignite the first spark of long-term political agitation. 

 

BUSINESS STANDARD 2ND NOVEMBER 2020 

INDIAN EXPRESS 2ND NOVEMBER 2020

https://indianexpress.com/article/india/if-govt-stays-rigid-it-will-be-voted-out-in-2024-aikscc-general-secy-6910555/

ON KISAN MORCHA  IN INDIAN EXPRESS 31ST OCTOBER 2020

ANOTHER ARTICLE 

TIMES OF INDIA 2ND NOVEMBER 2020

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/the-interviews-blog/farmers-are-asking-the-government-why-msp-cannot-be-the-legally-guaranteed-floor-price/

‘Farmers are asking the government why MSP cannot be the legally guaranteed floor price’

November 2, 2020, 2:10 AM IST TOI Q&A in The Interviews Blog | Edit Page, India, Q&A | TOI

   

Not all farmers have bought into the government’s vision for agriculture which has been fleshed out through three central legislations. Farm activist Kavitha Kuruganti from Alliance for Sustainable & Holistic Agriculture (ASHA) explained their concerns to Vishwa Mohan:  

What are the major objections to the newly enacted central farm laws?

The government hasn’t done what farmers have been asking for many years now – to enhance and guarantee MSP, to strengthen bargaining power of small farmers in the market, to enhance their capacity to store, process and sell at an advantage, as well as to free them from indebtedness. On the other hand, it has done the opposite, to create unregulated space for agribusiness companies and traders, to weaken ‘mandis’ which even with flaws provided farmers a space for collective bargaining and government intervention in their favour. It is saying, ‘we are giving the corporations more freedom to purchase, store and process, they will give you (farmers) better price’. Farmers don’t buy this and see this as the government washing its hands off all responsibility and rightly so. It is pitting farmers against powerful entities in a more unequal playing field now. We don’t have any evidence of this kind of de-regulation providing better and stable prices to farmers. With the new laws, the fact is that poor farmers and poor consumers have been left to their fate. Farmers are asking the government why MSP cannot be the legally guaranteed floor price.

It’s believed that procurement at MSP is not going to end as it’s key to India’s food security. So, why are the farmers apprehensive about it?

Farmers are rightly reacting to the Acts as well as the overall direction in which these reforms are pointing to. They have seen other hyped promises not being kept, like the one related to MSP implementation during Budget 2018. They are agitated that these reforms will tilt the balance further away from farmers towards big agribusinesses without addressing many structural vulnerabilities. That the government has undemocratically pushed these reforms without listening to farmer organizations including Bharatiya Kisan Sangh during Corona restrictions shows that corporate interests are pushing this, not farmers’ interests. Farmers know that the advisors who recommended these reforms have also asked for dismantling of PDS. In at least a few states, the mandi system is almost equivalent to MSP and procurement regimes. Further, the ECA 2020 refers to the PDS system ominously as something that is “for the time being in force” putting a question mark on its existence and continuation. What we need is a universalised expansion of PDS in fact with millets, pulses and oil included, to create a win-win for farmers and consumers.

Why are the farmers’ protests limited mainly to Punjab, Haryana and western UP? It’s not as intense in other parts of India.

The proximity of these places to Delhi makes the national media think that protests are limited to these states, whereas Karnataka has been on the boil and protests have been happening in other south Indian states, Bengal, Odisha etc. The responses from farmers have understandably been correlated to how dependent they already are on the mandi system in a given location. The government’s reform should have focused on improving such a mandi system everywhere in the country and bring it to a farmer-empowering uniform level rather than weakening or dismantling it.

Do you think the Punjab government’s Bill, giving legal guarantee to procurement of wheat and paddy at MSP, will serve the farmers’ interests in the long run when other crops are not covered under it? There is a view that the move would drive private players out of the state and it will ultimately harm farmers’ interests.

The Punjab government’s Bills are a good symbolic effort of a state government to assert its constitutional authority over agriculture. In fact, we should see it not just as the Punjab Government’s response, but the response of the entire society in the state, including all non-BJP political parties. It is also a development that once again reinforces the serious deficiencies of the Central Acts. However, the Bills have serious deficiencies in that they focus only on wheat and paddy, and don’t lay down any concrete mechanisms to guarantee MSP to farmers for even these two crops. Further, they are unlikely to get Presidential assent due to the current politics around the matter. What the Punjab Government, and other state governments should attempt is to amend their state APMC Acts, making legally tenable amendments that push back the ‘trade areas’ of the central act, and a guarantee of remunerative MSP. From All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee (AIKSCC), we had drafted a Bill to confer remunerative MSP as a legal entitlement on all farmers, which was backed by 22 parties. The state governments should consider that.

Many experts, after all, claim that it’s 1991 liberalisation moment for India’s farm sector.

Let us not forget that it was post-1991 that the agrarian crisis became more acute; farm suicides have continued unabated since then. Today, free trade agreements are being negotiated and signed, pitting impoverished Indian farmers against highly-subsidised produce from elsewhere.

What’s the best model you may suggest for the benefit of small and marginal farmers, and also women farmers who in many parts of India don’t get the benefit of the government’s scheme such as PM-Kisan as they don’t legally own land? Do you think the expansion of the FPO model works for small farmers?

We need to accept in this country that the so-called development trajectory will have agriculture engaging the largest section of the working population for a long time to come, that too with decreasing size of landholdings, unlike in other countries. We have to evolve our own model and not emulate failed models which push out all small farmers and then provide huge subsidies to corporate-run agriculture. We do need remunerative prices to be guaranteed as entitlements for all farmers. Importantly, we need an enumeration of all actual farmers (de-linked from land ownership as the only criterion) as per the National Policy for Farmers 2007, since more than half of them are tenant farmers, sharecroppers, women farmers and ‘adivasi’ farmers who are denied any scheme benefits or entitlements. The PM-Kisan’s benefits should be transferred to women farmers’ accounts in each household, since land ownership is mostly with men in any case. We need tenant farmers to be identified and included. Odisha had done both these with KALIA. The FPOs should be invested upon for sure – however, not to facilitate capture by big businesses, but to truly strengthen farmers’ interfaces with markets.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

TIMES OF INDIA 2ND NOVEMBER 2020 ABOVE 


THE TRIBUNE 5TH NOVEMBER BELOW