@prashanthamine
Mumbai: A bureaucrat from Maharashtra on conditions of anonymity once confided with this correspondent that once there is change in power, those who switch over to the opposition benches oppose the very same policies, programs and projects which they once had pushed through or championed for while in power. And those who for all these years while on the opposition benches had tooth and nail opposed the very same policies, programs and projects, are now its biggest votaries.
That pretty much sums up the continuous agitations and opposition to the policies, programs and projects. We do not mind if the protests, delays and cancellations lead to delays and cost over-runs and creates negative investor and market sentiments. The current agitation over Farm bills is no exception to the rule.
Everybody till to-date has indulged in lip-service towards emancipation of the poor, downtrodden and marginalized farmer from the life-threatening vicious circle of debt, crop failure and suicides.
Over the years the entire cooperative movement which had so nobly declared that the farmer would at its core center, has conveniently sidelined him and is now heavily politicized. Making the farmer powerless and despite having the vote is at the mercy of the very same political class which should have in the first place alleviated him from the deep morass he finds himself in even after 73 years of our independence.
The cooperative credit societies, money lenders, water cooperatives, lift irrigation systems, cooperative banks, cooperative milk unions, cooperative sugar factories, cooperative spinning mills, other cooperative federations and seeds and fertilizers, almost every other aspect of the rural economy all are heavily dominated by politicians and those in power.
The simple mantra to electoral success for elected representatives, especially those from rural areas is that if you are able to control these levers of economic, agricultural and social aspects of rural life your ticket to the Assembly or the Parliament is guaranteed.
Somebody just the other day while referring to the Graduates and Teachers division constituencies in Legislative Council’s in some states, wanted to know why there were no reserved constituencies for farmers.
The question is not so much about the Minimum Support Price (MSP); it’s more about its assured price. It is not even that, what is more important for the farmer is the assured supply of water to irrigate his fields, assured power supply to his agricultural pump so that he can timely water his standing crops, assured and affordable supply of seeds, fertilizers and farm implements on rental hire basis. Most importantly what he needs is hassle-free timely availability of credit.
The problem does not end there. What the farmer bemoans is the lack of post-harvest storage facilities and infrastructure. In most places the cold storage facilities for products like fruits and vegetables, milk, dairy products, meat, fish are virtually non-existent.
It has been close to 170 years since a British military engineer Arthur Thomas Cotton attached with the Madras presidency first proposed the linking of major rivers like Godavari, Krishna and Cauvery river’s through navigable canals in the late 1850s. The National Water Development Agency (NWDA) was set up in July 1982. The National Water Resources Council (NWRC) adopted the National Water Policy in September 1987.
As per a December 2015 information bulletin of the Lok Sabha, the concept of National Water Grid was first proposed by former union minister Dr K L Rao who put-forth the Ganga-Cauvery link way back in 1972, close to 48 years ago! The idea then was to end the scourge of drought in states like Maharashtra, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Madhya Pradesh by harnessing surplus devastating flood waters of Brahmaputra and Ganga and its tributaries in Assam, Bihar, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh.
By governments own admission on February 8, 2018 out of the 30 projects approved under the Inter Linking of Rivers (ILR) or now better known as Inter Basin Water Transfer Links (IBWTL) between the Himalayan rivers (14 projects) and the Peninsular river components (16 projects), Detailed Project Reports (DPR) have been possible only in two projects – the Par-Tapi-Narmada and Damanganga-Pinjal river linkages.
The classic case of call it lethargy or what is the Gosikhurd national irrigation project in Vidarbha region of Maharashtra which was launched in 1984 is nowhere near completion and is now expected to be completed by revised deadline of 2023!, a good 39 years later.
The situation is no less different in the Tapi river basin in North Maharashtra where although dams have been constructed along the river basin, yet the farmers are still waiting for the water in their fields. Same is the case of farmers living in the Pohner village alongside the Godavari river in Beed district of Marathwada region. For some strange inexplicable reasons while the river has ample amounts of water stock in it, farmers at the tail-end of the adjacent canal system hardly get a drop of water. The canal is in total disrepair with out-growth of weeds and shrubs blocking flow of any water.
If it is going to take 170 years for once idea to take concrete shape and another 40 odd years for any project to near completion, it is little wonder then that the farmer is driven to despair and often commit suicide in Vidarbha region and in other dry parts of the country. The farmers are not expecting anything more than assured supply of farm inputs, storage facilities, enhanced and assured MSP, end to red-tape and playing politics with his emotions.
