India: Union Minister Rules Out Tobacco Board Funds to Compensate Farmers

Source from:  The Hindu 01/06/2016

Union Minister of State for Commerce Nirmala Sitharaman has ruled out the Tobacco Board funding a proposal to provide compensation to farmers eager to dismantle tobacco barns.

Responding to the demand made by YSR Congress Whip in Parliament Y.V. Subba Reddy during the winter session of Parliament, the Union Minister, in a letter to the MP, said the Tobacco Board does not adequate surplus to fund such a big proposal.

She said in her letter to the Ongole MP, which was released to the press here, that it was not feasible to fund the proposal from the Tobacco Board's corpus.

She said the Board did not draw any grants in aid from the Centre for its budgetary requirement relating to pay and allowances to employees, running of service extension and development programmes and welfare schemes for farmers. "Therefore it does not have adequate surplus to fund such a big proposal," she said.

FCTC signatory

The MP had suggested that the Centre encourage the ryots to dismantle the tobacco barns on a permanent basis and compensate them for the capital cost on tobacco barns.

India being signatory to Framework Convention on Tobacco Control(FCTC) entailed demand and supply reduction strategies, she said, adding that the government had not thought of compulsorily move farmers out of tobacco cultivation.

She insisted that the farmers to adhere to the crop size fixed by the Tobacco Board based on market dynamics to ensure fair and remunerative prices for farmers. Outlining the efforts made by the Tobacco Board to improve productivity and regulate the crop size,she asked ryots to make use of the Rs 50 crore Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana implemented jointly by the Union and State Governments sharing the cost equally to device strategies to help farmers go for alternative crops.

Meanwhile, the MP urged the State government to make best use of the RKVY to come out of the vicious cycle of excess production and resultant losses to the growers by going for alternative crops. The Centre had released the first instalment under RKVY to Rajasthan, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh and Tamil Nadu only. Enditem