Saturday, March 1, 2008

The Yatra team in MP




Indian farmer ..


At fiftieth days the Yatra team is exploring Madhya Pradesh at the moment. In Madhya Pradseh the team has so far covered a distance of 610 km,covering 3600 farmers of 206 villages in 8 districts.There have been more than 210 meetings.The huge number of farmers have received the yatra and discussed the issues of their concern. The isssues included the problem of debt and credit system.They felt the loans or credit are a big problem especially with he small and marginal farmers.At some places Government had waived off the entire debt of the farmers in cases where it was seen that the frmer cannot pay it back.But there are several others who are in serious crises due to their inability to pay the money back.Now they are not paying the money at all in the hope that Govrnment will wave off their debt as well.These are mostly the small and marginal farmers in the region.With the new budget coming in with the announcement to waive off the debt of small and marginal farmers , this has surely given a sigh of relief to all those who have been living in the agony of huge debt and the consequences in case of non-payment.

In a village of Guna district, the political parties promised to give farmers an exemption from the electricity bill in case their party wins . Majority of the farmes voted for the party.But after the party won at the state level , as usual the promise made by the party was broken and the farmers in the villgers got the electricity bill amounting as high as Rs.50,000.The villagers collectively went to the CM He assured them that they will recive a 75% exemption .The assurance also has proven fake as their supply were being disconnected incase of non-payment of total amount.

Apart from this even the nature was playing games .This year the severe cold has destroyed Coriander and Gram crop the most .Gopal singh of Ramanna Village District Guna was very optimistic about the profit from the Coriander that he grew in his 50 acre field , but now he has suffered a great loss.
Similarly ,In Narayanpura village of District Guna in year 2005 a Sahkari Sugar Mill ,basically a public enterprise asked farmers to grow sugarcane as they were ready to buy it at the rate of Rs.120/quintal.The farmrs seeing it as a good option did grow sugarcane in ther fields.Things changed inter, the rate had gone down to Rs.80 /quintal.The farmer in order to sell the crop ,cannot go to the mill directly .He had seek a coupen from Gram Vikas Adhikari before selling it.This also added to their misery.Moreover, 2 kg of sugar after every quinta was cut as a commission .The farmers are so disappointed ,frustrated and angry that some have even burnt their crops....
Surprisingly there was no trace of e-choupals in Guna district.




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