Visit of central team amid urea shortage rage
- The People's Chronicle Editorial :: August 28, 2021 -
IT is rather embarrassing for the state that amid the government authorities contending that the outcries over shortage of urea fertiliser or its allocation/distribution mechanism of urea fertiliser is mainly due to the opposition parties politicising the issue, Rajya Sabha MP and Parliamentary Standing Committee on Fertiliser and Chemical chairperson Kanimozhi Karunanidhi has acknowledged plight of the farmers and assured of instructing authorities concerned to ensure sufficient availability of the essential agricultural ingredient.
While officials of the Agriculture Department, who attended Thursday's joint meeting consisting of members of the Parliamentary Standing Committee and some farmers, are certain to have furnished reports chronicling its success tales, the assurance given by MP Kanimozhi to the farmers to address their grievances signifies that the 16-member Parliamentary Standing Committee is not impressed with the way the urea issue is being handled in the state.
Moreover, had there been no serious issue over provision of urea fertiliser there is no reason for the Ministry of Chemical and Fertiliser to despatch the team for spot assessment of the situation in Manipur, whose contribution to the country's food grain production is not discernable.
On their part, the farmers' organisations need to take full advantage of such a rare visit by a Parliamentary Committee to not only pour out their grievances on the recurring urea issue but also highlight absence of both viable irrigation network, transport bottlenecks and cold storage chains, which are equally essential in case the state is to make any gains out of the limited farm lands.
The visit of Parliamentary Standing Committee also assumes significance as some weeks back agriculture minister O Lukhoi stated that over one lakh bags of urea fertilisers were made available to farmers of the state and had personally met with some farmers who staged hunger strike to protest government apathy.
With the department officials remaining indifferent to outcries of the farmers, whose only demand at this juncture is to ensure sufficient availability of fertiliser and convenient access to the same, presence of the Committee members need to be capitalised upon so as to bring some visible changes in the agricultural sector.
In view of the government seemingly trying to dilute diatribes from both farmers and civil societies over belated and unregulated allocation of fertiliser by proclaiming that it is making available fertiliser at highly subsidised rate, representatives of the farmers should apprise the visiting Committee members to remind the state's authorities that subsidy on fertiliser is a national policy to ensure self-sufficiency in food grain production and under no circumstance should the government or department officials live under the impression that provision of urea at subsidised rate could be counted as their achievement.
While meeting of the Committee members with officials of agriculture department and select farmers soon after their arrival demonstrates purpose and seriousness of their two-day trip, it is hoped that whatever suggestions, if any, made by the central team would be accorded importance by the department officials for they are the ones who would be implementing projects and schemes aimed at doubling the farmers' income as promised by Prime Minister Modi.
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