Indian opposition attacks government over farm policies

November 23, 2000
Web posted at: 8:16 AM HKT (0016 GMT)

NEW DELHI, India (Reuters) -- India's opposition parties, led by the Congress Party, lashed out at the government in the lower house of parliament on Wednesday, accusing it of neglecting the interests of farmers and agriculture workers.

They said the farming community was suffering because of high input costs and lack of rains in several regions.

Moving an adjournment motion seeking to censure the government over the crisis facing farmers, opposition leader Sonia Gandhi said the government was resorting to indiscriminate imports while prices of agricultural commodities were falling.

"The government has no policy, no foresight, no plan of action to revive agriculture growth," Gandhi said.

An adjournment motion is a censure of the government and consists of a debate followed by voting.

Rejecting the opposition criticism, Agriculture Minister Nitish Kumar said his government would not hesitate to hike import duties and bring anti-dumping measures to protect the interests of the farming community, the Press Trust of India (PTI) reported.

It was the present government that had brought for the first time since independence a national policy on agriculture, the news agency quoted him as saying.

The motion was put to the vote and defeated, PTI said.

Gandhi, who is also the president of the Congress party, criticised the government for what she said was its callous attitude towards tackling a drought in several states and floods in other regions.

"This government has grossly let down the farmers and must be taken to task as it has forgotten its primary duty towards the tillers," Gandhi said.

She said sugarcane growers in northern Uttar Pradesh had not been paid their dues by the mills and farmers in other parts of the country were starving and committing suicide.

Opposition deputies attacked the government for what they called indiscriminate imports of rice, wheat, palmolein and sugar, the crash in prices of rubber and coconut and cases of suicides by cotton farmers.

Sparse southwest monsoon rains had created drought-like conditions for the second year in a row in the western states of Gujarat and Rajasthan, as well as parts of central Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.

India gets 80 percent of its rainfall from the June-September southwest monsoon, and its economy depends on these rains.

The country recorded its 12th successive normal monsoon this year, but rains were scant in some oilseed-growing regions and excessive in other parts of the country causing floods.

The agriculture sector accounts for 25-28 percent of India's gross domestic product.

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