PEASANTS OF KAMARKATI FIGHT AND REGAIN THEIR LAND

From Our Special

Correspondent in Kolkata

PEASANTS in West Bengal have intensified their resistance against land grabbing. Thousands of acres of land have been forcefully grabbed and peasants evicted by older landowning classes with direct connivance of Trinamool Congress. In many places, police actively helped the armed land grabbers. As this was a complete new experience for the peasantry after three decades of unquestioned land rights, initially they were forced to step back. But the situation has began to turn now, and more and more villages have witnessed resistance and strong fight back by the evicted peasants.

The latest event has taken place in Kamarkati in Burdwan district. The old landlord family, suddenly reactivated by change of guard in Writers’ Building, demanded that their land would have to be returned back. Eighteen acres of land were distributed among the peasants during the early period of Left Front government. It was not merely a verbal threat. The paddy seeds were destroyed by tractor in one night. The peasants, shocked and traumatised, sought the help of police. The local police officers replied that the regime has changed and now the landlord would be landlord again. There was frustration among 435 families who had legal rights over these lands. They felt that they have lost everything. It is rainy season now in West Bengal and the best period of sowing. It was the worst of nightmares.

But, the situation changed within few days. The villagers, even those who have voted for Trinamool Congress, realised the nature of catastrophe and decided to fight back. Once again they mobilised with Red flags on their shoulders and recaptured a section of the land grabbed by the landlord. Immediately, the peasants started sowing again. The peasants were in good numbers and that forced the landlords to stay back. Later, Trinamool Congress leaders came and threatened the peasants with dire consequences. The peasants defied the threats and hundreds more gathered to fetch the rest of the lands. On August 1, the poor peasants of Kamarkati won back the whole land. They were joined by youths from agricultural workers’ families. The women played a leading role in this courageous assertion of democratic rights. The collective force of the peasants proved mightier than the armed gangs of the landlords.

Kamarkati is an example. In last two months, 1200 bighas of land were forcefully grabbed from 2200 peasants. The peasants have won back more than 700 bighas through spirited struggle. The anti-land grabbing resistance has spread in Mateswar, Memari, Galsi, Bhatar, Mangalkot, Ketugram and other areas of Burdwan district. One of the fiercest attacks that have come with the new government in the state was on the gains of land reforms. It is not merely individual or sporadic incidents, but a systematic attack on land rights of the poor, marginal peasantry and share croppers. The peasants are now fighting back this assault with determination.

Courtesy: People’s Democracy

WITHDRAW PROPOSAL TO DECONTROL UREA PRICES: AIKS

The All India Kisan Sabha has issued the following statement on August 10:

THE AIKS condemns the Congress-led UPA government’s proposal to decontrol urea prices and increase prices by 10 per cent. The empowered group of ministers on August 5 approved the Saumitra Chaudhuri Committee recommendations to decontrol urea and allow increase in prices by 10 per cent initially and later bring it under nutrient based subsidy by October. The 10 per cent hike in per tonne over the current maximum retail price (MRP) of Rs 5,310/tonne could translate to an additional expenditure of up to Rs 530/- for farmers. From next year, companies will have a free hand and farm gate prices of urea will be fixed by them. The fertiliser companies will also pass on any increases in gas pricing and additional taxes imposed directly onto the farmers.

This decision should be seen in the light of the startling revelations of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India’s “Performance Audit of Fertiliser Subsidy” report tabled in parliament on August 5, 2011 which found that 45 per cent of farmers pay more than the MRP and nearly 60 percent face problems in getting their season’s full requirement in time. It also pointed to the problem of artificial shortages created by dealers during peak seasons to hike prices much above the MRP. Instead of putting an end to black-marketing and corrupt practices, the government measure is only going to put the farmers at the mercy of fertiliser cartels. The CAG has also indicted the government’s fertiliser policy for deliberately pushing costly imports and turning away the focus from indigenous production of urea which is a key farm input. The present move by the government is despite strong indictment of the new pricing scheme for urea by the CAG.

Already the government had on July 8, 2011 by a notification, withdrawn any restraint on increasing prices of non-urea fertilisers by the companies and stated that the market price of non-urea fertilisers “will be open”. It rescinded an earlier notification of May 5, 2011 that had allowed companies to increase MRP of Di Ammonium Phosphate (DAP) by Rs 600/tonne in addition to the MRP prevailing then (Rs 10,750/tonne) and also a proportionate increase in MRP of complex fertilisers (corresponding to that in DAP). The MRP of DAP according to the May 5^th notification would translate into Rs 11,470/tonne. In the light of the July 8^th notification the MRP of DAP inclusive of VAT if calculated based on the imported cost of DAP at $650/tonne will translate into around Rs 14,300/tonne. This would mean an exorbitant increase of Rs 3550/tonne of DAP within the last two months. The government move on urea is coming at a time when already farmers are paying hefty amount for non-urea fertilisers and rising input costs are a disincentive to cultivation.

Courtesy: People’s Democracy

ALL INDIA AGRICULTURAL WORKERS UNION (AIAWU) PLANS YEAR OF STRUGGLES

Suneet Chopra

THE general council of the All India Agricultural Workers Union (AIAWU) met at Kozikode in Kerala on July 31 and August 1, 2011. The meeting was well-attended with 98 members attending from 13 states, out of a total of 109. They represented a membership of 50,54,502. Kerala topped the list with a membership of 21,34,539, followed by Andhra Pradesh 15,14,960 and Tamilnadu 5,09,546. The states with above one lakh AIAWU members were Tripura 2,34,009, Punjab 1,70,520, Maharashtra 1,26,530 and Karnataka 1,07,546, reflecting the growth of the union in all parts of the country.

TRADITION OF STRUGGLE

In fact, apart from Bihar, all state units in the country increased their membership. This not only reflects the better organisation of the union in different states but also the growing discontent of rural masses on issues like the takeover of land for non-agricultural purposes, growing unemployment and the failure of the central and various state governments to ensure the proper functioning of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and other development schemes that could have provided work and livelihood for the rural labour, and the destruction of the public distribution system (PDS) as a result of governmental corruption, negligence and the determination to dismantle it at any cost despite the excruciating price rises. The union has addressed these issues successfully in a number of states and this is reflected in the growth of the organisation.

The meeting was presided over by P Ramayya, president of the union, and the welcome address was delivered by the Kozhikode mayor and former member of parliament, Premaja, who highlighted the tradition of struggle of workers, peasants and patriots in the district since the colonial period; even today this spirit of struggle in our masses is reflected in the victory of LDF candidates in ten out of the thirteen assembly constituencies in the district. She welcomed the council members to this arena of struggle and hoped that it would help them chalk out a relevant and successful programme of action for the future.

The condolence resolution was then placed by union joint secretary Suneet Chopra, expressing the sense of loss at the demise of CPI(M) Central Committee member and AIDWA leader Papa Umanath, CPI(M) Central Committee member and former deputy Tripura chief minister Baidyanath Majumdar, SFI’s founder president C Bhaskaran, Janvadi Lekhak Sangh’s founder general secretary Professor Chandrabali Singh, artist M F Husain, writer Dr Nirupama Rath, progressive intellectual S R Sankaran, former chief secretary of Tripura, and Telangana veterans K L Narayana Rao and D Bhiksham. It also remembered former Kozhikode MLAs like A Konaran, Mathai Chacka and M Dasam. In regard to the kisan and agricultural labour movements, the union offered its condolences to the families of Abani Dutta of Tripura, K Vasu and M K Gopalan of Kerala, B Srinivas and Sunil of Andhra Pradesh, J Navalan, S Manian, M Vedayyan, A Bose, B Chehniyappan of Tamilnadu, Harnek Rana of Punjab, Jayamahalingappa and Hekkalagonda of Karnataka and Mohan Sah, Baleshwar Kesari, Jawaharlal Choudhury, Ramdev Mandal of Bihar. The union also condemned the murder of over 400 Left leaders, activists and supporters of CPI(M) by Trinamul Congress and Maoist hooligans in West Bengal, and condoled the death of the Mumbai carnage victims and those killed in attacks on dalits, women and minorities all over the country.

WORSENING SITUATION

In his presidential address P Ramayya noted the enormous contribution of Kerala to the agricultural labour movement from the time of stalwarts like P Krishna Pallai, A K Gopalan and E M S Namboodiripad and expressed his thanks to the comrades of Kozhikode, for hosting the general council meeting there.

He pointed out that the meeting was taking place at a time when many important issues were facing us like the price rise, widespread corruption and huge scams. It was in this background assembly election were held in five states. In case of West Bengal, the unified force of imperialists, big corporate houses, corporate print and electronic media came together to support an omnibus coalition of the Trinamul Congress, Congress and Maoists against the Left Front. But even in these conditions, the Left Front secured over two crore votes and it is the rural poor and toiling masses who constituted these sections as they had benefited from the pro-people policies of the Left Front government.

In Kerala, the United Democratic Front (UDF) formed a government but with only three seats more than the Left Democratic Front (LDF), with the CPI(M) emerging as the single largest party. Given that the UPA-II government is unlikely to take any genuine steps to help the poorest sections, all council members need to do their utmost to concentrate on the concrete problems facing the agricultural labour in their states and take up year-long plans to ensure that these problems are tackled in a way that some benefits accrue to the people at large. Problems like drinking water, house-sites, public distribution system and wages should be addressed and their links with government policies exposed to awaken the people to fight against them.

A Vijayraghavan, general secretary of the union, then placed his report. He highlighted how the central government was pursuing a cynical policy of cutting down expenditure on agriculture, encouraging the shift from food to cash crops, cutting down on input subsidies making farming unviable, leading to over two lakh suicides farmers. To make matters worse it encouraged speculation in the necessaries of life and had virtually destroyed the public distribution system, by not allotting adequate quotas to the states while allowing grain bought out of public money to rot in godowns. Moreover, administered prices of foodgrains, petrol, diesel and kerosene were raised time and again making the survival of the rural masses impossible.

Even the laws that the UPA-I had passed under pressure of the Left, like the MNREGA and the Forest Rights Act, were being scuttled with changes that the letter of the law did not permit. Moreover, under the pretext of the Food Security Act the number of beneficiaries and amount of foodgrains was being reduced while the price was being raised at a time when days of work available both on farms and under the MNREGA scheme were coming down. Clearly, there was no option but to organise struggles to resist these attacks and put forward alternative policies evolving correct organisational methods to achieve even greater successes than had been achieved this year.

On this upbeat note a discussion followed in which 27 members participated, giving their rich experience in overseeing the implementation of the MNREGA, leading struggles for land and house sites and against atrocities on dalits in Andhra Pradesh, Tamilnadu, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Karnataka, for implementing welfare schemes, housing and activising women in the organisation in Kerala and Tripura, ensuring 20,000 house sites in Haryana, planning struggles on wages in Karnataka, on amenities in Rajasthan and or preserving land from marauding corporates in Orissa, resisting marauding land takeovers and ensuring wages for cane-cutting and rural labour in Maharashtra and reorganising the agricultural labour in Madhya Pradesh.

LIFE & DEATH ISSUES COME TO THE FORE

During this debate, CPI(M) Polit Bureau member, AIKS president and the AIAWU central working committee member S R Pillai addressed the council, pointing out that the meeting was being held at a time when important developments were taking place. He noted how the setback to the Left in the recent elections in West Bengal was, despite the close fight in Kerala and a slight expansion in Tamilnadu, bound to make the ruling classes pursue their neo-liberal policies much more vigorously. This would bring the damaging features of the agrarian crisis far more sharply to the fore. Not only have the ruling classes not implemented land reforms, they have rendered peasant agriculture unviable and are cynically pursuing a path of dispossessing and impoverishing the vast mass of peasants in their effort to hand our agriculture over to corporates in every sphere of farming activity, which will lead to at least ten crore more peasants losing their land. And these corporates include multinationals jockeyed by the USA into decision-making in agriculture under the Indo-US Knowledge Initiative (sic!) through which our research too will end up being patented by them. In fact, the central government has already closed down public sector fertiliser factories; land is being taken over as never before; water takeovers and privatisation of power plants and the control over seed production will reduce the farmer to a bonded labourer on his own farm or, still worse, a pauper.

Clearly, many issues of life and death for our peasants and agriculture will come up. These will have to be tackled with strength and vigour. Both the AIKS and AIAWU will have to identify the crucial issues jointly, calling for mass actions with other like-minded organisations and launching decisive struggles to ensure the survival of peasant agriculture and adequate wages for agricultural labour. Only then can the misery these sections face today be stemmed.

In his reply to the discussion, Vijayaraghavan highlighted the increasing consciousness among the union leaders at every level; yet one could not afford to be complacent. Much more work needs to be done in states like Bihar, while expansion of the organisation into Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and the rest of the country has also to be planned. This inclusive approach requires abandoning stale methods of presenting reports that only preach to the already convinced. Without diluting our perspective, we must be able to attract the majority of agricultural labour to our organisation.

At the same time, a narrow and sectarian vision to restrict the organisation to only farm workers will defeat this purpose as ours is an umbrella organisation for rural labour, including casual labour, migrant labour, sugar-cane cutters, fisher-folk and rubbers and toddy-tappers, among others. Organising the rural proletariat under one roof has become more and more necessary to defend their rights and to gain advantages for them. Our success in states like Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh reflects this broader vision. The stress laid on the recruitment and promotion of women cadre in Kerala and Tripura or of integrating elements of the anti-caste dalit movements into our ranks is going ahead in our organisation in a number of states. But beyond this extension of our reach, reflected in our growing membership, militant struggles for employment and wages too are necessary to steel our activists with class consciousness.

He then pointed out that the office bearers who met in a recess during the meeting had also finalised their agreement to hold joint mass actions with the AIKS and other like-minded organisations in September and October, with a view to building a powerful and irresistible movement as we go forward to build a movement for alternative policies. To strengthen this consciousness, while most states had conducted education classes on their own, a school for the North and one for the South were proposed. Publication of a bulletin, the first one with the deliberations of the general council, was also proposed.

After the unanimous passage of the report, AIAWU joint secretary Hannan Mollah enumerated the issues to be taken up for future struggles. Deeper and better planned struggles to implement the MNREGA and to prevent corruption in its implementation, wage struggles both to ensure statutory and MNREGA minimum wages; taking up the issues of the price rise, the functioning of the PDS and the Food Security Bill, for the distribution of surplus land and village common land among dalits and the landless and issues concerning the implementation of the Forest Rights Act and the Land Acquisition Bill, local and state level struggles to implement various welfare schemes for dalits, women and the destitute, organised resistance to the growing attacks on dalits all over the country, activising women agricultural workers through conventions of women from state to lower levels as called for by AIAWU seventh all-India conference, the struggle to secure compensation for agricultural labourers who suffer accidents at work and campaigns for them to avail of government insurance schemes; the struggle against the use of poisonous insecticides without proper masks and gloves, banning those that are injurious to health like endosulfan and ensuring free medical treatment for agricultural labour suffering from their ill-effects while holding the producers of such drugs responsible.

The meeting also passed resolutions to highlight these issues which were placed by joint secretaries Kumar Shiralkar and Sunnet Chopra, and vice president Bhanu Lal Saha. The meeting was followed by fourteen area-level mass conventions in Kozhikode district in which the report of the deliberations and decisions taken in the council were explained to the people by office bearers of AIAWU.

Courtesy: People’s Democracy

AIKS TO RESIST ANTI-PEASANT POLICIES

MEETING at New Delhi on July 2 and 3, with members from across the country attending it, the Central Kisan Committee (CKC) of the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) discussed the serious agrarian situation in the country and concluded that the Congress-led UPA government’s policies are further deepening the agrarian crisis. The CKC highlighted the burning issue of corporate land grab taking place across the country. Lakhs of acres of land are being acquired across the country and millions of people are getting affected by such acquisition. The meeting stressed the need of building strong resistance against such moves. The CKC also decided to launch struggles to protect the rights of the peasantry in the case of unjust land acquisition. Greater efforts will be made to intervene effectively on this matter.

The CKC condemned the violence perpetrated by the Trinamul Congress-Maoist combine on the Left activists and Kisan Sabha cadre after the assembly elections in West Bengal. The CKC unanimously adopted a resolution, titled “Stand with the Battle against State Repression in West Bengal,” against the brutal attacks by the Trinamul-Maoist combine and members from across the country expressed solidarity with the fighting people of Bengal who are resisting these attacks on democracy.

The CKC also discussed the issue of very important legislations like the Land Acquisition Act Amendment Bill, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, Seed Bill, Food Security Legislation, Biotech Regulatory Authority Bill, and Pesticide Management Bill which have been pending in the parliament for long. Many of these bills pose serious problems and are aimed at promoting corporate interests at the expense of the peasantry. There are also many free trade agreements (FTAs) in the pipeline. Many rounds of negotiations on the India-EU FTA have been held but no text is in the public domain and the parliament as well as the state governments have been kept in the dark about the content of these agreements. These legislations and FTAs that are pending may come up posing a serious threat to the interests of the peasantry. The CKC called upon the peasantry to be vigilant and build up enough pressure to ensure that these legislations are not passed in their present form.

The CKC noted with concern the reports that the kharbooz (musk melon) has been patented by Monsanto. Kharbooz was one of the 190 crops that were removed from the purview of the Biodiversity Act by the UPA government and the AIKS had then warned of the implications of this act. This threat looms large over the remaining crops also and we should stall any move to loot our biological resources.

The CKC resolved to intensify struggles against the anti-peasant policies of the UPA government.

RESOLUTION ON

BENGAL ATTACKS

This meeting of the Central Kisan Committee (CKC) condemns the attacks that have been unleashed against the agrarian and wider Left and democratic movements by the ruling classes and ruling combine in West Bengal in the months following the elections to the Assembly and the formation of the Trinamul Congress-led government in the state.

With these attacks, the ruling combine has attempted to effectively demobilise the Left across wide areas of the state.

The attacks include:

1) 21 CPI (M) and Left Front activists and supporters murdered, thus taking the murder toll to 405 since the 2009 Lok Sabha elections.

2) 3 cases of forcing comrades – as a result of physical and mental torture – to commit suicide

3) More than 1000 Left workers and supporters injured, with 643 having suffered grievous injuries. An uncounted number of injured workers have been prevented from seeking medical aid or filing police complaints.

4) 7 cases of rape of women supporters of the Left; one of whom was killed.

5) 186 incidents of molestation, including physical torture, of women comrades.

6) 628 CPI(M) offices attacked and ransacked.

7) 193 CPI(M) offices captured and occupied.

8) 702 offices of mass organisations of the Left captured and occupied.

9) 55 offices of elected student unions captured and occupied.

10) About 40,000 comrades forced to leave their homes and residential areas, of whom 11,457 are now in temporary shelters organised by the CPI (M).

11) More than 100 leading comrades arrested on false and fabricated charges.

12) 354 recorded sharecroppers (bargadars) and vested land allottees prevented from ploughing their land.

13) More than 20,000 acres of agricultural land currently under litigation but in the possession of landless farmers under threat of being reoccupied by landlord claimants who had been displaced by land reform.

14) Crores of rupees (our current estimate is 25 crore or 250 million rupees) extorted by goons of the ruling combine from villages as “penalty” (a large share of that money has been extorted from schoolteachers, other professionals and peasants).

15) 11 major incidents of trumped-up “arms recovery” cases against the CPI (M). In addition there have been innumerable smaller incidents of such false cases.

16) Hundreds of Left-controlled village panchayats forced out of office. This has been done in three ways: by forcing resignations, by forcing defections, or by coercing the panchayat chairpersons to follow the illegal diktats of the local representatives of the ruling combine.

17) Hundreds of representative institutions, from cooperative societies to elected university bodies, have been captured, made defunct and denied their rights.

18) The pioneering Left daily Ganashakti is under severe attack. Hawkers and distributors are being threatened, and bundles of newspapers are being burnt.

19) The state government is now – vindictively and mala fide -- reviving cases against Left leaders that were disposed of more than 40 years ago.

20) The two major institutional achievements of the Left Front, land reform and panchayati raj, are sought to be undermined and destroyed by the ruling classes and ruling combine.

The CKC warns that this attack represents a grievous offensive against the hard-earned rights of the working people in one of the most advanced outposts of the democratic movement in the country. It is a historic fact that the attacks will be against not only the political representatives of the Left, but also against all toilers and the democratic rights of the people at large. History has shown, as have the early signs from the new dispensation that even those who voted for the ruling combine will not be spared.

The CKC recognises the historic mission of the West Bengal peasantry and agricultural workers and other democratic sections in this difficult period and in the years to come. The tasks of restoring democracy, civil rights and the right to decent livelihoods rest on them. Our experience is that, in times of such repression and trial, our movement and organisation are steeled, and emerge stronger.

The CKC sends its revolutionary greetings to the West Bengal unit of the Kisan Sabha and to all fighting people of the state. It calls on all its state units to organise -- independently and with other democratic organisations and individuals -- protests and demonstrations against state repression in West Bengal.

Courtesy: People’s Democracy

ALL INDIA KISAN SABHA (AIKS) CONDEMNS BENGAL FIRING ON PEASANTS

THROUGH a statement issued from New Delhi on July 11, 2011, by its president, S Ramachandran Pillai, and general secretary, K Varadha Rajan, the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) had condemned the brutal violence unleashed on poor peasants and sharecroppers in Haroa region of North 24 Paraganas district in West Bengal by the Trinamul goons aided by the police. The AIKS has noted that the Mamata Banerjee government of the state and Trinamul goons are perpetrating violent attacks against the peasantry in many parts of the state, with the aim of reversing the land reforms and snatching away the hard won rights of the peasantry. They have overtly supported the landlords and other vested interests in their attempts to forcibly evict poor peasants and sharecroppers from their land.

On July 9, the police opened fire on the poor peasants who went to re-establish their right to cultivate after being evicted from their land by Trinamul goons and representatives of the erstwhile feudal landlordism. Many of the sharecroppers and poor peasants have been injured in the joint action. Four of the agitating bargadars (sharecroppers) and pattadars (holders of the vested land that was given to the landless), who were being forcibly evicted from the land under them, suffered serious injuries in the police firing. All the injured are poor tribal peasants. The police had cordoned off the entire area and was not even allowing to take the injured to a hospital. Also, Trinamul goons also ransacked the houses of CPI(M) supporters and Kisan Sabha activists, and set them on fire.

The AIKS statement said that along with a number of places across rural Bengal, Haroa has been witnessing forcible eviction of bargadars and pattadars by Trinamul land-grabbers. The erstwhile Left Front government had given these bargadars the hereditary right to cultivate the land of the landlords, and the landless had got over 15,000 bighas of land spread over Haroa and Minakha from the same government. But since the Trinamul Congress formed a government in the state, the landless and bargadars are being prevented from tilling their lands; even their crops have been destroyed in many places. More than 10,000 peasants including bargadars and pattadars have been evicted from their land by Trinamul supporters.

The All India Kisan Sabha has warned the Trinamul-led government against such attempts and called for protection of the rights of the peasants and bargadars. It said it would resist with all its might any attempt to reverse the land reforms or stifle the rights of the peasantry. Expressing solidarity with the struggling peasantry and the injured, the organization has asked all its units to rise in protest against such attacks on the peasantry.

Courtesy: People’s Democracy

ALL INDIA KISAN SABHA DEMANDS RS 300 PER QUINTAL CANE PRICE

IN a statement issued from New Delhi on July 20, the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) has taken exception to the way the government is trying to fix the minimum support price (MSP) of sugarcane for the coming season.

One may note that the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) had had a consultation on July 19 with peasant organisations and state governments on sugarcane pricing; and that AIKS finance secretary Noorul Huda and joint secretary Vijoo Krishnan attended the meeting on behalf of their organisation. The AIKS representatives pointed out that the consultation was being held at a time when cane growers are finding sugarcane cultivation increasingly unviable due to its low prices. Despite such a scenario the government has systematically tried to propagate a myth that it is providing “fair and remunerative” prices to the growers. On July 17, the finance minister had attributed the skyrocketing inflation to “high procurement prices,” but the AIKS refuted this contention and argued that the CACP must fix the sugarcane price for 2012-13 after considering some vital factors that are as below.

1) Ever since the decontrol of fertiliser prices under the Nutrient Based Subsidy (NBS) regime, the prices of DAP, MoP and other fertilisers as well as of urea, which has been partially decontrolled, have been increasing. Fertiliser firms have been given free hand to fix the prices. The Department of Fertilisers issued a notification on May 5, 2011, stating that the “companies have the freedom to increase the maximum retail price (MRP) of DAP by Rs 600 per tonne in addition to the MRP prevailing at present (Rs 10,750 per tonne)” and also a proportionate increase in the MRP of complex fertilisers (corresponding to that in DAP) would be “admissible.” But this “admissible” MRP would translate into Rs 11,470 per tonne for DAP. Now through a fresh notification on July 8, 2011, the department has rescinded the notification of May 5, 2011, and stated that the market price of non-urea fertilisers “will be open.” The MRP of DAP inclusive of VAT, if calculated on the basis of the imported cost of DAP at 650 dollars per tonne, will translate into around Rs 14,300 per tonne. This is an exorbitant increase of Rs 3550 per tonne of DAP within the last two months. Other input prices have also increased substantially. The volatile oil prices and increase in the prices of petrol and diesel are also an added burden on the farmers. The AIKS said the CACP would have to take note of this extraordinary situation in fertiliser prices as well as fuel prices, apart from the increase in the costs of other inputs while determining the sugar MSP.

2) The Directorate of Economics and Statistics (DES) had submitted Rs 68.81per quintal as the cost of production (C2) in 2004-05 and Rs 79 per quintal in 2010-11, which means a meagre increase of Rs 10 only over the last six years. However, according to an estimate, the harvesting cost alone has increased by Rs 20 per quintal in the intervening period as labour costs have increased. The DES figures show the seed cost as Rs 5022.54 per hectare only whereas the seed costs range between Rs 12350 and 19760 per hectare across different states. The DES seems to have conveniently missed the exorbitant increase in the fertiliser, irrigation and diesel costs too.

3) The AIKS had collected the costs of production for sugarcane in Tamilnadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh (east and west) in 2010-11. If the MSP is calculated on the basis of the Swaminathan commission recommendations, then at the given costs they would range between a low of Rs 284.4 per quintal to a high of Rs 367.50 per quintal if Western UP. This was based on calculation a year ago. Subsequently, there has been a further increase in the cost of production and hence the cane prices must be fixed commensurately. The AIKS also pointed out that sugarcane is a long gestation crop with single cropping in a year, and the risk involved for the cane growers is also greater, which should also be taken note of while fixing the prices. Additional incentives in states with low productivity also need to be considered. The AIKS has therefore demanded that the sugarcane price must not be below Rs 300 per quintal.

4) The AIKS also pointed out that sugar mills are arbitrarily fixing the recovery rate, often at much below the actual; often there are also complaints of fraudulent weighing of the produce. The sugar mill’s word is taken as final on the matter of recovery as well as weighing and there is no cross-check on them. Stringent measures must be taken to curb such practices. Byproducts like molasses, bagasse and press mud, which also bring earning to the sugar industry, are not taken into account while fixing the prices.

5) The Sugar Development Fund (SDF) is almost entirely cornered by the industry and its flow is not equitable or beneficial for the farmers. This has to be corrected and a part of it must be set aside to provide production incentives as well as insurance to the sugarcane growers to compensate for the crop losses arising out of pests, natural calamities and accidents. Provision of cheap credit to small and marginal farmers through this fund must also be explored. The SDF must also be used to disseminate production enhancing techniques at subsidised rates among the farmers.

6) The government is pushing for decontrol of sugar to aid the sugar lobby and big corporates who also are defaulters in terms of huge arrears that need to be paid to the cane growers. The AIKS says it is opposed to any proposal to decontrol sugar and urged upon the CACP to recommend such prices as may provide adequate incentive to the farmers to cultivate sugarcane.

Courtesy: People’s Democracy

ALL INDIA KISAN SABHA OPPOSES FDI IN AGRICULTURE, ALLIED SECTORS

THROUGH a statement issued from New Delhi on April 5, the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) has strongly disapproved the central government’s recent move to allow foreign direct investment (FDI) into agriculture and allied sectors including in the seed sector. In the name of boosting FDI inflows. the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion of the government of India has recently released the third consolidated FDI policy circular (Circular 1 of 2011), laying down the FDI policy effective from April 1, 2011. The multinational corporations (MNCs) which entered into India through joint ventures with Indian companies have now been allowed to make investments in the same field outside the Joint Venture unilaterally without obtaining any approval from the Indian partner. This move will ensure the tightening of the stranglehold of the MNCs over our economy at the expense of the Indian companies. The move also exposes the extent to which global agribusinesses are dictating the course of policy decisions in India.

Conditions for allowing foreign investment for production and development of seeds and planting material have been liberalised. The government has granted unjustifiable concessions to the MNCs and has allowed 100 per cent FDI in development of seeds, horticulture, planting materials and services related to agro and allied sectors where the entry route is automatic and unrestricted. Floriculture, horticulture, vegetable cultivation, mushrooms, pisciculture, aquaculture and animal husbandry including poultry and rearing of animals under intensive farming systems under controlled conditions have been fully opened up for foreign agribusinesses that are purely driven by profit motive. This is bound to seriously compromise the interests of millions of peasants engaged in dairying, poultry and other such activities for their livelihood.

The AIKS is of the opinion that the latest government’s move will lead to an accelerated dismantling of the National Seeds Corporation and the system of making quality seeds available to the peasantry at affordable rates. Indian seed manufacturers will be adversely affected and peasants would be at the mercy of the MNCs for the supply of seeds. There will be no control over seed prices or royalty and seed monopolies will be further strengthened. Dangerously, FDI has now been permitted in the development and production of seeds and planting material, without the stipulation of having to do so under “controlled conditions.” This could have serious implications and the possibility of contamination of strains in the case of open field trials as well as compromising our biodiversity cannot be altogether ruled out.

In the plantation sector also in tea plantations, 100 per cent FDI has been allowed. This could spark a wave of takeovers of small plantations and the possibility of future land use change to indulge in real estate speculative activities is also open. The lives of millions of small players and plantation workers (a large number of them tribals) will also be put into peril. States like Kerala, Tamilnadu, Bengal, Assam, Tripura and other north eastern states will be adversely affected by this move.

In this light, the AIKS has strongly opposed the unjustified concessions given to MNCs in the field of agriculture and animal husbandry, and has demanded that they be withdrawn forthwith. We appeal to the peasantry and all sections of society to rise up in protest to oppose these measures and force the government to withdraw this decision.

Courtesy: www.pd.cpim.org/