Journalism of Courage
Amid criticism from opposition parties in the face of farmers’ protests in several parts of the country, the BJP national executive on Saturday presented and passed a resolution on agriculture. The party highlighted the NDA government’s initiatives in the direction of doubling farmers’ income and expressed gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for these initiatives.
The party asked Shivraj Singh Chouhan, the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, which is going to the polls later this year, to present the resolution.
The MP government had faced flak earlier when farmers were killed in police firing in Mandsaur last year while protesting with demands for farm loan waiver.
Chouhan later told the media that the Modi government has taken initiatives for procurement of crops and provide appropriate price to farmers for their crop. He said the Central government has achieved success in providing water for irrigation to every farmer, in programmes such as river-linking and providing health cards to farmers.
He said Modi has firm commitment to double income of farmers by 2022 and work is going on to achieve that target, including increase in crop production and availability of water for irrigation.
The Madhya Pradesh CM said that 99 irrigation projects were pending for implementation for several years. “The Prime Minister took up these projects — nearly 18 have been completed. Work is in progress on the others,” he said.
On the government’s decision to increase the minimum support price (MSP) for crops, Chouhan said that the BJP national executive expressed gratitude to the PM for increasing the MSP from 50 per cent to 97 per cent for different crops. He said farmers were amazed with that development.
