Union Agriculture Minister and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) Supremo Sharad Pawar on Friday advised against being “hasty” in implementing the food security and Aadhaar-based cash transfer schemes and instead called for a “pragmatic approach”.
“Our party has extended its support to the food security Bill and Aadhaar-based cash transfer scheme. But we are of the firm view that these decisions should not taken in a hurry,” Pawar told Business Standard, while inaugurating the NCP state unit’s state-of-the-art office in south Mumbai.
“During my speech at the National Development Council, I put my position on the implementation of food security on record. The decisions in this regard need to be taken after taking into account the present economic conditions, wherein there are rising constraints on carrying out expenditure on various schemes due to falling revenue mobilisation,” Pawar said.
“Under the food security programme, it is proposed that nearly 68 per cent of India’s population will get wheat at Rs 2 per kg against the current procurement cost of Rs 18 per kg. Farmers will find it difficult to sell their marketable surplus in such a situation and therefore any decision in this regard should be pragmatic in nature,” Pawar added.
He warned that if farmers failed to get the right prices for their marketable surplus, they would shift to other crops, which in turn would adversely impact wheat production in the future. He also added that if wheat production fell, India would be forced to import it.
Pawar referred to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s statement during his NDC speech that there had been a two per cent fall in BPL families in the country. “If the number of BPL families is decreasing, why is the government increasing subsidies,” he asked.
