‘Talks with farmers positive’, next round likely on Feb 18 : Anurag Thakur
New Delhi: Another round of discussions between farmers’ unions and the central government is expected to take place on February 18, ‘following the positive talks’ that concluded during the meeting held late last night, Union Minister Anurag Thakur said on Friday.
Speaking to reporters here, Thakur said, “The government had invited farmer unions for talks, several farmer leaders have attended the meeting and very meaningful discussions took place.”
“We together have scheduled the next talks for Sunday (February 18). I am confident that there will be a good atmosphere on Sunday also. There will be talks, and we will move towards resolving the issues,” he said.
Highlighting the achievements of his government, Thakur said, “The government has done more than what the Modi government has done in the last 10 years on fertilizer, water, procurement at MSP, cheap loans from banks, and compensation.”
“In 2013-14, when the UPA government was in power, the agriculture budget was ₹27,662 crore. Now the agriculture budget of the Modi government is more than ₹1,25,000 crore which is 5 times more agriculture budget than the UPA period,” he asserted.
The Minister further said, “We have transferred Rs. 2,81,000 crore directly to the bank accounts of more than 11 crore farmers through Kisan Samman Nidhi. Under the crop insurance scheme of the UPA period, farmers did not get anything.”
Farmers have received compensation of more than Rs. 1.5 lakh crore under the Modi government. Out of 10 thousand FPOs, 8 thousand have been formed, and lakhs of farmers have also joined it, Thakur said.
“During the time of Congress, the total purchase of wheat, paddy, pulses, and oilseeds was Rs. 5,50,000 crore. Modi government made a purchase of Rs. 18,39,000 crore. That means almost three and a half times more. This shows that we increased the prices and also made purchases more than double,” he said while speaking about Minimum Support Price (MSP).