No Agriculture policy, now it will be ‘Farmer Livelihood Policy’ in Punjab
Thursday, 10/08/2017
http://epaper.dailypostindia.com/Details.aspx?id=179323&boxid=59226&uid=&dat=2017-08-10
Chandigarh : Punjab government will now implement ‘Farmer Livelihood Policy’ in the state instead of agriculture policy. The government has given this task to the Punjab Farmers Commission. The commission will complete this work by the end of the year. The Chairman of the Commission Ajaybir Jakhar said that it will be stated in the policy what steps should be taken to improve the economic condition of the farmers. This policy is being prepared by keeping in mind the next 20 years. The policy which includes farming, allied fields, marketing of crops, sowing of crops according to requirement. Apart from this, a new law for farming in the Punjab is also under consideration.
Punjab has no agricultural policy yet. The draft of agricultural policy had been prepared even during the previous government, but it could not be implemented. The matter of agriculture policy was discussed in this government too, but after the experts suggestions, it was decided to change its form. Meanwhile, Chairperson of Krishi Samaj of India has been appointed Chairman of Punjab Farmer Commission. This post had become vacant after the resignation of G S Kalkat.
The same was the suggestion of the Punjab Farmer Commission. According to the information, suggestions are to be taken out of the crisis to the farmers. In this policy, it is suggested coordination between Agriculture Department, Horticulture Department, CIPHET, Mandi Board, Cooperative Institutes, Animal Husbandry Department, Dairy, Fishery etc is must. Although work is going on this policy like what should be done for small and marginal farmers, Ideas were sought from scientists, farmers and traders and soon it would be in public domain.
According to the information, there are recommendations in this policy for the cooperative sector which has been affected due to loans. As per suggestion, only active members since last three years should be entitled to vote, contest or propose any candidate to stop the undue political interference in cooperative societies. While now, it is a system that only political candidates become active during elections to contest elections only. There are also about 30 per cent of societies those have never did any business, but these got active at the time of the elections. But with the new policy, 80 per cent of the people will be out of the election fray. This will help to improve cooperative system. Jakhar said that it was suggested that districts cooperative banks should be merged into Punjab State Cooperative banks.
Talking to select journalists, the Punjab Farmers Commission’s chairman Ajaybir Jakhar said that besides the ‘Farmer Livelihood Policy’ the commission is in the process of preparing a ‘databank’ in which the farmer’s description will be kept as record.
