Farmers should clear confusion over agri bills with Centre

Patna: While farmers in the country are on the roads, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said that they should talk to the Centre to sort out the confusion over the new agri bills. Farmers mainly from Punjab and Uttar Pradesh are on the roads against the farm bills passed in Parliament. Kumar was speaking at the inauguration of Patna's longest 12.5 km Digha-AIIMS Patna elevated road on Monday.

"The Central government is repeatedly asking them to talk. There is no question of procurement being affected due to these bills. In Bihar, we removed the Agriculture Produce Market Committees (APMC) in 2006 soon after I took over as CM of Bihar. Since then, we are doing procurement of Kharif and Rabi grains by ensuring minimum support price to farmers. They can sell their produce anywhere in the country. Earlier, the farmers had to sell their produce in the market committee inside their own district," Kumar said.

"When talks between farmers and the central government take place, we are sure that the confusion will be sorted out. The farmers will get above MSP for their produce," Kumar said. The Central government is claiming that the farmers would not be affected by these bills. In fact the bills will be beneficial for them. They will be able to sell their produce anywhere in the country above the Minimum Support Price (MSP). They will end the "Middlemen and Inspector Raj in the country."

The new farm bills allow contract farming with provisions to sell crops above the MSP to the companies whom they contract with. The state government can penalise companies for buying the produce below the MSP. Companies will not be able to grab land or force farmers to sell their land in case of crop loss. "These are the actual reasons why we had abolished Agriculture Produce Market Committees in Bihar in 2006," Nitish Kumar said.