Sugarcane society| Unlike before 2017, no farmer suicide in UP in last 6 yrs: CM

Adtyanath also claimed that farmers “became a part of the government’s agenda only after Narendra Modi become the Prime Minister of the country. “We all know what was the condition of the farmers in the country before 2014. After freedom, farmers become a part of the agenda of the government and they started get benefits of the government schemes, only when Narendra Modi took over as the prime minister,” the CM said.

Asserting that a farmer “is just a farmer” and has no caste, creed, or religion, the CM claimed that before 2017, farmers in UP were not getting water and electricity, and several irrigation projects were lying pending for decades.
“Farmers only want seeds, fertiliser, water for irrigation and appropriate price of the crop on time. All that was lacking earlier. Before 2017, farmers committed suicide.

Farming was considered a loss-making venture… But now with the time-bound execution of Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana an additional irrigation facility has been provided to 22 lakh hectare of land in the state… A farmer is now able to benefit from government schemes like Soil Health Card, Kisan Bima Yojana, Agricultural Irrigation Scheme, and Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi,” the CM said.

Announcing that Rs 2 lakh crore would be sent directly to the bank accounts of sugarcane farmers through ‘direct benefit transfer scheme’, the CM said the amount was more than the annual budget of various states. “In the last three-and-a-half years, we have done the work of transferring Rs 51,000 crore to the farmers’ accounts,” he said, adding 2.60 crore farmers in UP were benefiting from Prime Minister’s Kisan Samman Nidhi.

He also took a jibe at Pakistan, saying the neighbouring country was begging across the world for loans whereas the UP government was transferring Rs 2 lakh crore directly into the accounts of farmers.

Crediting the farmers for “producing additional 10 tonnes of sugarcane per hectare and increasing the sugarcane cultivation on additional 8 lakh hectares in the state”, the CM said: “In contrast to the previous governments when sugar mills were closed or sold at throwaway prices, we did not shut down any sugar mill. Instead, we restarted the closed sugar mills… At present, 119 sugar mills are operating in the state and 105 of them were making payments to farmers within 10 days of the procurement of crop.”

Some of these sugar mills provided sanitisers during the COVID-19 pandemic, he added.

He said the government has put pressure on the remaining mills to meet the goal of payment within 14 days.

The chief minister also said that maximum green fuel was being provided in the country by sugarcane farmers by producing ethanol and aided that UP was the largest producer of ethanol in the country.

“Now, this is not going to happen that our own money goes out in the name of petro-dollar and later spent in the form of terrorism against us,”
the CM said.