NCP MP demands separate agricultural budget for farmers' benefit

Kolhapur, Dec 3 (UNI) Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) MP Sadashivrao Mandlik today demanded a separate union agricultural budget on the lines of the railway budget with provision of adequate funds for rural and agricultural development in India.

Addressing a press conference here, Mr Mandlik, senior NCP leader said protection of the interest of farmers and farm labours should be considered as basic responsibility of the Central Government and a national agriculture policy should be decided with agriculture being its epicenter.

The present concept of treating agriculture as a state subject should be abolished and agriculture should be firmly fixed as a Central Government responsibility. In this connection, if needed, the Constitution of India should be changed, he pointed out.

He also called the budgetary provision of 20 per cent by the Union government for agricultural population, which mounts to 65 per cent of the population of India as unjustified.

Since the increase in the farm output is negligible, the investment in farm sector is also very negligible. As a result of which, the gross national income from this sector has reduced to 23 per cent against the original 57.7 per cent, hence, a separate agricultural budget to avoid farmers' suicide is the need of the hour, he added.

In comparison to industrial product pricing which benefit the manufacturers, he said the reason for farmers' poverty and suicides lie in the fact that instead of farmers, middlemen and agent get the benefit of increase in farm product prices and stressed the need for the government to look into the problem for farmers' welfare.

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