Guwahati, January 10: Amid ongoing farmers’ agitation against India’s new farm laws, Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal on Sunday praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying he is the first PM of India who has given full respect to the farmers and helped them through various welfare schemes.
“PM Modi is the first Prime Minister of the country who has given full respect to farmers and helped them through various schemes. Because of this, farmers’ self-confidence has been increasing to double their income to double by 2022,” Sarbananda Sonowal said.
He went on to say, “While PM Modi has taken initiative for the development of the farmers in the last six years, the Congress never succeeded in taking such steps.”
“The Congress was silent on farmer’s issues and they had never taken up such steps. PM Modi has strengthened farmers by taking up various schemes like PM Fasal Bima Yojana, PM Krishi Sinchai Yojana, Kishan Credit Card, Soil Health Card, PM Kishan Sanman Nidhi and the farmers are now happy,” Sarbananda Sonowal said.
Sarbananda Sonowal further said that farmers of Assam are happy. “They [farmers] said that they didn’t get any respect from the earlier government, but have received it from the BJP-led government,” the Assam chief minister said.
Sarbananda Sonowal also said that his government is committed to provide Minimum Support Price (MSP) to farmers.
Recently, the Assam government decided to give Rs 1,868 Minimum Support Price (MSP) of paddy for every quintal to the farmers of the state as the government has been procuring the paddy from the farmers with the same MSP.
Chairing a meeting to discuss the modalities to strengthen the supply chain of paddy procurement of the state, Sonowal asked food, civil supplies, consumer affairs department and agriculture department to review the existing system, remove the bottlenecks and give a shape to a simpler procedure for farmers to sell their produce to the government agencies.
Sarbananda Sonowal had also asked the Executive Director FCI to increase paddy procurement centres beyond the existing 39 centres in the state. (Page News Service)