New Delhi: Senior BJD MP Prasanna Acharya on Friday targeted the Centre asking about steps taken to fulfill the promise made for doubling farmers’ income by 2022.
While participating in the debate on the Motion of Thanks on the President’s address in the Rajya Sabha, Mr.Acharya said, “Farmers income has not doubled. The Union Government had promised that by 2022, their income will be doubled. Can the Government say that by now, it has been able to double the income? No, the farmers’ income has not been doubled.”
Why are the farmers dying by suicides every day if their incomes have doubled?, he asked.
Quoting the data of the National Crime Record Bureau, he said that 42,480 farmers and daily wage workers ended their lives in 2019, up six per cent from the previous year.” Every year the number of farmers’ suicides is going up. Why? he sought to know.
Batting for granting of special status to Odisha, he said that it was a long pending demand of Odisha.
The MP also said that the recent Union Government’s order to recall any IAS and IPS officer at any time from the states which does not require state’s permission is harmful to the federalism of the country.
However, the BJD MP also appreciated the Government’s nationalistic approach and said that many people believe that had Netaji been alive after independence, the country would have been shaped differently.
He noted that the Centre has rightly taken the decision to kick start the Republic Day celebrations from Netaji’s birthday.
Mr.Acharya has also raised the non-lifting of surplus parboiled rice by the Food Corporation of India (FCI) from Odisha and urged the Centre to look into the matter.
Raking up the issue during the Zero Hour in the Upper House of Parliament today, Mr.Acharya along with BJD MPs Sasmit Patra and Prashanta Nanda demanded that the Centre should lift surplus parboiled rice from Odisha which it has stopped arbitrarily.
“The FCI has refused to receive any parboiled rice in the current year 2021-22. Target has been issued to lift only 5 lakh MT of forfeited parboiled rice and 2 lakh MT of raw rice. As a result, Odisha has been left with 15 lakh MT of surplus rice,” Mr.Acharya told the Upper House.
So what should we do with that rice. Should we throw them into the Bay of Bengal, asked Mr.Acharya.
The BJD MPs expressed apprehension that non-lifting of surplus par-boiled rice from Odisha would severely affect the farmers.
The MP requested the concerned Minister to kindly consider and ask the FCI to lift all the surplus parboiled rice from Odisha. He also urged the Centre to release the outstanding subsidy amount of food procurement to the State as early as possible.
“When there is growing resentment among the farmers towards the ruling Biju Janata Dal, its party MPs are passing the buck to others and doing politics over raw and parboiled rice as it did in the past,” said State BJP Krushak Morcha President Pradip Purohit.