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Yogi Adityanath says govt raised farmers' income, removed middlemen
Farmers were dying due to hunger before the BJP government came to power and the BJP ensured adequate support, the chief minister said.
Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath attacked the former governments and chief ministers of Uttar Pradesh claiming that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government under his leadership did more to uplift the conditions of farmers than previous governments.
Speaking in Lucknow’s Lok Bhawan, Adityanath claimed that the UP government led by him ensured timely payment to the sugarcane farmers and revived old sugar mills while opening new ones. He said that farmers were dying due to hunger before the Adityanath government came to power and the BJP ensured adequate support.
“The previous governments did the work of ruining the condition of farmers where they were forced to commit suicide. Our government revived all the shut sugar mills and even set up new ones. With this, our government also ensured timely payment to the sugarcane farmers,” Yogi Adityanath said.
The chief minister also claimed that during the rule of the BJP sugarcane farmers received twice the amount of money than they received during the earlier regimes. “It is noteworthy that during Mayawati's tenure from 2007-2012, 30 lakh cane farmers were paid ₹52,131 crore and during the Akhilesh regime from 2012-2017, a payment of ₹95,215 crore was made to 33 lakh farmers. The payment made by the BJP-led UP government is twice the amount that was made by the former Bahujan Samajwadi Party government and 1.5 times more than the Samajwadi Party government,” the government highlighted in a press release.
Yogi also said that the government procurement of crops during the rabi and kharif season increased under his government. He said that the government was focused on removing middlemen and purchasing directly from farmers.
“During 2016-17, only 6 lakh metric tonnes of paddy was procured through the middlemen, and not directly from the farmers. The farmers did not get the benefit of the MSP. Even during the Covid period, more than 66 lakh metric tonnes of paddy were purchased from the farmers at MSP by our government,” he said.
He further added that the government procured at least 56 lakh metric tons of wheat directly from the farmers.
Direct Benefit Transfer
The chief minister said that the state government transferred ₹37,388 crores to more than 2.54 crore farmers under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana along with hiking the amount of MSP.
Adityanath said that the government waived ₹36,000 crore of about 86 lakh farmers to help them get back on their feet. “The pro-farmers approach of the state government played a huge role in the production of 2,399 lakh MT of food grains during the past four and a half years. Furthermore, the government has also provided compensation of ₹2,376 crore to the farmers under Prime Minister Fasal Bima Yojana,” the chief minister said.
The government in the release also said that it paid over ₹4.72 crore to farmers as crop loans, made at least 45 agricultural produce free from mandi duty, set up 220 more markets for the sale of farmers' crops, modernised 27 old mandis, reduced mandi duty by 1% and also established 291 e-NAM mandis.
