Supreme Court wants to set up a committee to resolve the issue
Vice President sees possibility of a certain meeting ground for the farmers and the government
Cabinet approves assistance of about Rs. 3,500 crore for sugarcane farmers
New Delhi: The ongoing farmers’ protests had a multidimensional impact today. On one hand, acting on a PIL, the Supreme Court said it intended to set up a committee to resolve this issue, on the other hand, Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu expressed the hope that a reasonable solution will be found on the issues raised by the agitating farmers “since both the government and the farmers are willing to talk to each other”.
The Union Government too, in a move that it said would benefit the five crore sugarcane farmers and their dependents, as well as the five lakh workers employed in the sugar mills and related ancillary activities, approved assistance of about Rs. 3,500 crore for sugarcane farmers at the meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs. This assistance would be directly credited into farmers’ accounts on behalf of sugar mills against cane price dues and subsequent balance, if any, would be credited to mill’s account.
While the three-judge Supreme Court bench presided over by Chief Justice S A Bobde suggested the committee to be comprised of representatives of farmers unions across country, government and other stakeholders to resolve this issue, it told Solicitor General Tushar Mehta: “Your (Government) negotiations with protesting farmers have not worked apparently till now.” While issuing notice to the Centre on the PIL seeking removal of farmers from blocking the roads at Delhi borders, the court asked the petitioner, a law student, to include farmers’ unions too as parties. The matter will be further taken up tomorrow.
The Vice President meanwhile, said at the awards ceremony jointly organized by Rythu Nestham and Muppavarapu Foundation at the Swarna Bharat Trust in Muchintal in Hyderabad, that he saw possibility of a certain meeting ground for the farmers and the government. He expected both the sides to crystallise the meeting point based on an understanding of each other’s position and said that it was the duty of everybody to support farmers. He lauded the farmers for rendering a great service to the nation during the pandemic by producing record food grains in spite of facing hardship. “Both the Centre and State Governments should work as ‘Team India’ in addressing the needs of the farmers.
The CCEA, while sanctioning assistance to the sugarcane farmers, noted: “Farmers sell their sugarcane to the sugar mills, however the farmers are not getting their dues from the sugar mill owners as they have surplus sugar stock. To address this concern, the Government is facilitating the evacuation of surplus sugar stock. This will enable payment of dues of the sugarcane farmers.” It added that this subsidy aimed at covering expenses on marketing costs including handling, upgrading and other processing costs and costs of international and internal transport and freight charges on export of upto 60 LMT of sugar limited to Maximum Admissible Export Quota (MAEQ) allocated to sugar mills for sugar season 2020-21.
– globalbihari bureau
