Paswan flays Rahul Gandhi's move on farmers' issue

In a dig at Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi's move on the farmers' issue, Union Food and Consumers Affairs Minister Ramvilas Paswan today said the Congress could do little for the farmers during its stint in power for two terms at the Centre.
"We have done more for the farmers' welfare in past one year that the UPA government could do during its decade-long rule at the Centre (in two terms)," he told reporters replying to a question.
Paswan's comments came in the backdrop of Rahul having raised the farmers' issues in Parliament and outside after coming out of nearly two months' sabbatical last month.

Claiming that NDA government had lived up to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's promise to the farmers to provide them generous compensation in lieu of crop damages due to natural calamities, Paswan said the Centre has already directed giving minimum support price for procurement of harvest from them.
In the event of crop damage due to unseasonal rains or other vagaries of nature, it has been decided to compensate the farmers by scaling down extent of damage by 33 per cent against the earlier 50 per cent, Paswan said, adding that compensation amount too has been hiked substantially by one and a half times higher than the previous amount.