In todays Blog we will discuss about all major points like, did centre has the power to make a law on this area, what disputes are going around centre and state govt? why some states are protesting heavy against this farm bill ? failures happened in the Parliament and the proceedings done in Rajya Sabha, can that be challenged in Supreme court and by this farm bill, will farmers be finally reformed ?
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What is APMC ACT:
Government interfered in it and they introduced APMC ACT This act says that farmers cant sell their products directly to the consumer nor any one can directly purchase from them all the sale will be done through the MANDI which was established through the APMC ACT and the MANDI'S will be ran by the state governments So now lets see how the present model of the APMC ACT functions Each state's government has its own APMC States divide the Mandi's according to their area and each area has its specific Mandi If any trader wants to purchase any thing from Mandi then he has to accquire the license of that specific Mandi Similarly the farmers of that area are allowed to sell their production on that specific Mandi This system of selling and purchasing things from the specific Mandi is Mandatory for the traders and farmers So if any trader want to purchase product from APMC then he has to accquire license from the APMC So now lets see how the products gets sell through APMC for selling the products auctioning begins.
We divide auction system in to 2 parts 1st is MSP system, means ‘Minimum Selling Price’ and the minimum selling price is decided by the Govt of India MSP is not for all the crops, there are 22 such crops for which Govt of India decides minimum selling price MSP means auction price can't go down from that minimum price, Msp will be the starting level from where the auction will start the product cant be sold at lesser price from that decided minimum price and in 2nd system the crops apart from that 22 crops are sold by the Price Discovery system means on the basis of demand and supply of that produce in the market the price is discovered of that crops the products gets sold through the auction system, we can see that products gets sold in APMC through a supply chain means when farmer produces something it reaches to the consumer at last before that there are lots of middle men in the process and this new system is trying to eliminate this middle men process now let's understand this supply chain farmer will take his product to APMC MANDI and there he will meet with commission agent also known as becholiye.
These commission agents will take forward the farmers produce to the traders for selling the product and there they will negotiate and will discover the price and this process is not transparent after that, the transaction agent comes to the farmer and inform him at what price his product is sold now the transaction agent charges 3% market fees on the price which farmer is going to get, farmer only pays it now finally the product is upto trader from the trader it goes to the wholesaler from wholesalers to the retailers and there on to many vendors after all this it finally comes to the consumers the time when the consumers receives the product, there is 50% difference of the actual cost of the product and at least 25% of the total produce gets wasted so if I am getting this product at the price of 50 rupees or 70 rupees farmer is getting only 7 rupees in return and all the remaining money is divided in the middle men and also as market fees so this is the existing APMC system we can clearly see 2 flaws in our front first is who can be a trader? APMC market is totally under the control of state government so many of the peoples say that these traders are only those peoples who have any political connections so only those people becomes trader who are close to state government not others and second flaw we can see that is between farmer and the consumer there are many middle men and because of the these consumers gets the final produce at very inflated price and farmer has to sell his product at a very low price in 1963 when APMC act was introduced its objective was to protect farmers from the exploitation and to protect them from money lenders and middle men's exploitation but in changing times this act became the reason for the exploitation of farmers APMC act says about MSP (Minimum support price) but in many situation traders form a group and say that they will not buy product at MSP in the particular MANDI now think in behalf of the farmers, their produce is of perishable nature till a limited period of time if they don't sell their produce then the value of that product will go down day by day the product will not that fresh so traders takes advantage of this situation and they form a group and don't purchase the product at MSP farmer sells their product at lowest price for increasing MSP farmers from every state has protested a lot for it You should also know that there is nothing like regional MSP in our country understand like this, if you are producing rice in Chhattisgarh then its cost is different and if you are producing rice in Tamil Nadu then its cost will also be different but MSP for rice is same in the whole country means Chhattisgarh's farmers can get different profit for that and Tamil Nadu's farmers will get diff profit That's why to bring reforms in existing structure of MSP many farmers of different states has protested for it so what I am saying is the APMC act has became the reason for monopoly and exploitation it has became counter productive if we don't even think to bring new farm bill though also there is a need to rectify APMC act since long time in 1991 when the policy of LPG (Liberalization, Privatization and Globalization) was introduced then govt reduced its control from the maximum Indian industry for creating free market and economy just like that government should also reduce their control in agriculture and farming industry there must be a regulatory and controlled mechanism to make sure that farmers are not been exploited but at the same time these mechanism should also be like that it suits the need of 21st century for eg. if export gets cancelled then who should bear its cost, farmers should never be exploited for this what should be the clause if any trader buys the produce at lower than MSP for eg. the new system is about to come, already some states has adopted this system from past several years states like Karnataka, Bihar and Maharashtra so they brought new laws by seeing the flaws of existing system like if any trader buys produce lower than MSP then how much he should be penalized and what remuneration farmer should receive so the government needs to pull back its control from the agriculture and farming sector because the existing system is creating monopoly and whether its government, market or business monopoly is not at all good for any of these because when monopoly is there, there is no way for fair play or fair competition and only few peoples take advantage of it existing system, says that there is a situation of monopoly every time next we will discuss about the question that does center has the power to make a law around the farming sector or not for answering this question we will refer to 7th Schedule there are 3 lists given in 7th Schedule list 1 is of Centre in which centre can make laws in list 2 there are state subjects in which states can make laws and list 3 is Concurrent list in which both centre and state can make laws.
So agriculture comes in list 2-Entry 14 which means it is a part of state list so strictly speaking, agriculture comes under state where state can make laws for it state has the powers regarding agriculture research and agricultural produce if we talk about strict division the power to make laws is with state only not with the centre but the strict division is of no worth why because because we will refer to these 2 articles Art 248 of the Constitution states about Residuary Powers it says that if any entry which is not present in those 3 lists So this power will go the centre and it can make law on that matter and the second article is Art 249 it says that if any entry is the part of States list but when it comes to the National Interest then centre will have the power to make laws on the subjects of states list so by using Art 249 stating about the National Interest the centre holds the power and it can make laws one more thing if we talk about Concurrent list -Entry 33 so the entry 33 reduces the power of state to make laws for agriculture Entry 33 says Centre can also make laws in the matter of agriculture and by using Entry 33 Centre passed the essential commodities act, which was also a law so strictly speaking centre has the power to make laws for agriculture next point we will discuss about the parliamentary proceedings failures happened in Rajya Sabha like destroying mike, standing on the desk, actions happened with the speaker not taking vote, can all these proceedings can be challenged in Supreme court? for the question of this answer we will take help of Article - 122 of the Constitution which says that on the basis of Unconstitutionality, Illegality or Irregularity you can challenge parliaments proceedings in Supreme court but, you should know that what ever happens inside the parliament Supreme court can't interfere in parliament proceedings so it can't be challenged in Supreme court so now we will discuss that what is the reason behind the heavy protests in some states against the farm bill, why are the farmers revolting
After Independence every state has its own development rate all doesn't have same rate of development that's why some states are called as rich states such as Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu these comes in the category of rich states and some states comes in the category of poor states every state government for the development of their respective states they accquire some funds from the state funds and they receive some funds from the centre for the development lets take a common matric now imagine if all the states and UT gives 100 rupees each to the centre now centre allocates all the funds given by the states and UT but the centre also has to redistribute the funds at the time of redistribution centre favour more towards the poor states for their better development and the rich states gets less funds for eg. if we take a look at 2017 data if Maharashtra has given 100 rs to the centre then it has received back only 13 rs by the centre and Kerala got 52 rupees in return Punjab got 42 rupees in return Uttar Pradesh received 149 in return of 100 and Bihar got the highest 219 rs in return of giving 100.
This division between rich sate and poor state is not only in India it is present in other countries as well for eg. if we talk about US, its richest state New Jersey when it gives 100$ then in return it receives 60 dollars for sure but after giving 100 Rs and getting only 13 Rs is a huge difference these funds can be used for states development, rural development and farmer development so did you understood this whole background now we will discuss on case by case basis for eg. we take Punjab So if Punjab govt has to develop there state they can depend on 2 things on state funds and the funds given by the centre We already saw that if Punjab gives 100 Rs then it receives 42 Rs in return means it receives less funds since it has to acquire funds from anywhere for its state's development so in the whole country where these mandi's are present the state government charges some taxes from it these taxes are form 1% to 8 -8.5% highest tax is charged from Punjab's mandi so APMC of Punjab government are charged mandi tax , rural development tax so by combining all these taxes Punjab government charges 8 - 8.5% taxes in form of mandi tax the value of this 8 - 8.5% taxes was Rs 1750 crore Rupees this year now government has the opportunity that it can use this tax income for states development they can use it for rural development, infrastructure development and for development purposes of state now Understand the problem Mandi tax was collected through APMC which is with state government and is the existing system and the new farm bills which are introduced says about to create a new ecosystem, a parallel system so the tax which was collected through APMC was going directly in the piggy bank of Punjab's government but the new system which is coming will not be in control of the state government so the tax effect will reflect on those 8 -8.5% tax which Punjab government collects so the state government and there development will suffer according to the data of NCRB (National Crime Records Bureau) in 2018 there were 134000 suicides across the country in which 7% around 10000 peoples were Indian farmers the nation's farmer is not at all happy along with this in 2015 Shanta Kumar committee was formed for bring reformation in food corporation this committee founded an interesting fact, they said there are only 6% farmers of the nation who are taking benefits of MSP only 6% and 94% of farmers are not able to take the benefit of the MSP so discussion on farm bills has caught the nation's eyes towards farmer reform and farmer welfare so don't let it be with farm bills only we should talk about education also, why most of the farmers don't even know about MSP What steps government has taken for farmer education? and what state government is doing for the education of the farmers? these 3 bills are new of course, but along with this there are many such laws which act against the interest of the farmers like land acquisition act, land sealing act and many other laws which are not at all beneficial for the farmers I hope you have liked today's blog and you can be able to think unbiasedly about farmer welfare and farmer reforms if you have liked my video, then please share it with your friends and family country should discuss about farmer reforms that's it thanks for coming upto here.
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