ROURKELA: Amid raging protests against new farm legislations across the nation, chairman of Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence and former Union Minister Jual Oram on Saturday strongly defended the laws and hit out at the opposition, especially Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), for misleading farmers.
Jual said Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of self-reliant India entails economic uplift of farmers. The new farm laws enable farmers maximum prices for their produce and protect from the clutches of middlemen. “The new laws categorically ensure Minimum Support Price (MSP) with a clause ‘guaranteed prices’ and also protect land of farmers against sale, lease or mortgage. But the opposition is deliberately misleading farmers on MSP and contract farming to serve their vested-interest,” he said.
Criticising the Odisha government, he said farmers in the state are facing trouble in selling their crops at good prices. Members of BJP’s Krishak Morcha would stay vigilant to ensure all farmers get maximum prices for their crops at 3,500 ‘mandis’ in the state.
Highlighting Modi government’s contribution to farmers of Odisha, Jual said during the UPA-2 regime, paddy MSP rose by `360, while in the first term of the present NDA government, it jumped by `550. Similarly, wheat MSP during UPA-2 regime had grown by `270 but it went up by `575 during present NDA government’s first term.
During UPA-2, he said, pulses were not procured while merely 1,142 million tonne oilseeds were purchased from the state. The Modi government in last six years procured 20,272 million tonne pulses and 12,958 million tonne oilseeds from Odisha.