Bhubaneswar: Congress will host Kissan Workshops in every district from February 15 to expose anti-farmer policies of the Centre and the state government.
All India Kissan Congress vice president Surendra Solanki told reporters here that a public awareness campaign would be launched to educate people about the failure of the BJP government at the Centre and the BJD government in the state to resolve the farmers’ problems.
Solanki who was here to attend the executive committee meeting of the Odisha Pradesh Kissan Congress said the condition of farmers has worsened during the last six-year rule of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik in Odisha.
Odisha Pradesh Kissan Congress president Amiya Patnaik and office-bearers of the District Kissan Congress attended the meeting.
He said agro-based industries have become defunct in the past six years and farmers have not received dues of their produce and resorted to distress sale, Pradhan Mantri Sichai Yojana failed and a hopeless situation has arisen in the irrigation sector.
The Centre has waived the loans of capitalists but not that of the farmers’. He said the doubling of income of farmers has been a publicity stunt.
Solanki said the Odisha government has reduced the assistance promised to farmers under the KALIA scheme. A massive agitation will be launched against the anti-farmers policies of both the Centre and the state government. The details of the agitational programmes will be finalised soon, he said.
A consensus has been reached at the meeting to demand the waiving off farmers’ loan, a monthly pension of Rs 3,000 to farmers, revival of the agro-based industries, enactment of the special activities for sharecroppers, strengthening of mandis, and to raise the MSP of paddy to Rs 2,930 per quintal, the Congress leader said.
