Cong farmers' cell demands linking MGNREGA to farming sector

The Congress' farmers' cell Wednesday demanded that rural employment scheme MGNREGA be linked to the farming sector and urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to issue a white paper on farm insurance. At a meeting of Kisan Congress, presided over by the party's Kisan cell chairman Nana Patole, a resolution was passed to send representatives to Modi and Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar to review the policies relating to farmers and to provide relief to them on a war footing.

Patole said he has sought time from Modi and Tomar to apprise them of the problems being faced by farmers. "We demand that MNREGA should be linked to the farming sector," he told reporters.

"It was also decided to register the protest of farmers by organizing a dharna and agitation at the district level across the country over the hike in diesel prices. If the government does not agree, Parliament will be gheraoed," he said. The Congress Kisan cell chairman also wrote to Modi, asking him to act on issues confronting the farmers in the country, including providing remunerative prices to them for their produce.

"We request you to release a white paper on farm insurance schemes and their performance," Patole said in his letter to Modi. "We request you to link scale of finance with premium and claims of insurance schemes," he said.

The PM Fasal Bima Yojana has failed to provide succor to farmers and lakhs of them are awaiting their claims, the letter claimed. The government, Patole said, has announced the minimum support price (MSP) on only a few crops and the hike is minuscule.

"The MSP should be linked with government procurement under-investment fund or through any other means. Unless government procurement is linked, farmers would lose their minimum margins to machinations of private agriculture commodity traders," he said.