Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar while speaking on the floor of Rajya Sabha on Friday backed on the advantages of the farm laws and reiterated the government's offer to amend the laws. Slamming the opposition parties for spreading lies about the reformations, Tomar asked them to explain “what’s black” in the new farm laws.
He also denied opposition’s allegations that these laws will give power to the corporates over farmers land.
Tomar claimed that farmer unions and the opposition have failed to point out any inadequacies present in the laws.
The laws give options to the farmers to sell their produce outside ‘mandis’ and unlike the state government notified market places, such sale would not attract any tax. "We have added a provision that the area outside the APMC will be called a trade area, it can be a farmer's house, field or anything. Our act allows a farmer to sell his produce outside the APMC. Also, trade outside the APMC will not attract any kind of tax, be it Central or state,” added Tomar.
Interrupting the discussion on motion thanking the President for his address to the joint sitting of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha at the start of the Budget Session, the agric minister said, "Now in APMC, there is a provision for state tax. Outside the APMC, there is no tax, the Centre's act abolishes the tax. I want to ask farmers, especially the Punjab farmers the agitation should have been against the tax levied (by the state government) on sale made in mandis but strangely the protests are against freeing of the system from such taxes.”
The Punjab government’s contract farming act has provision to send farmers to jail and fines the farmer Rs 5 lakh for quitting the contract informed Tomar, adding that the central farm act allows a farmer to break the contract anytime without any repercussions.
Tomar today in his address to the Rajya Sabha setting alleged that the opposition parties are claiming that farmers across the country are agitated over the three new laws, but he believes "those in just one state are being misinformed and instigated".
The Modi government committed to the welfare of farmers and these laws will increase their income and bring revolutionary changes in the farming sector. He added that the mandi system of procurement of crops on minimum support price (MSP) based mechanism will continue.
Thousands of farmers, mostly from Punjab, Haryana and parts of Uttar Pradesh, have been protesting at Delhi's borders for over two months demanding a complete repeal of the Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020, the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020 and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020.