The Hindu Business Line : Flawed economic policies blamed for agrarian crisis

Delivering the keynote address at a seminar here, Ms Patnaik, a professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, said that public spending has been drastically cut in the name of reducing fiscal deficit.

The Nabard Employees Association organised the seminar on `Growing agricultural crisis in India' here on Thursday.

Dangers ignored

According to Ms Patnaik, various protections provided to the agricultural sector were removed one by one and it was unwisely opened up to foreign competition. This was done in defiance of the warning of some economists, who foresaw the dangers such a move was fraught with.

The vast majority of the rural population was taken out of the ambit of the public distribution system after it was restricted to the so-called below poverty line section. These are the three main factors that have contributed to the present distress in the rural sector.

FRBM ACT DENOUNCED

Ms Patnaik strongly denounced the wisdom of enacting the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act. A Government that did not bother about providing basic needs to the vast majority of the population did not stand to gain much in tightening fiscal control.

When the price of cotton collapsed in the international market, thousands of farmers in Andhra Pradesh who had shifted to cotton cultivation on the advice of the State Government were left with not many options other than ending their lives.

Even this has not made the Government to sit up and take note of the plight of the farming community. This amounts to nothing but criminal negligence on the part of the Government and abetment of suicide, Mr Patnaik said.

She concluded by reminding the audience of the `dangerous consequences' of the macro economic policies being followed in the country since 1991.

Among those present on the occasion were Mr C. Sasidharan Nair, President, Nabard Employees' Association; Mr B. S. Shekhawat, Chief General Manager, Kerala Region Office of Nabard; Mr Jose T. Abraham and Mr V. Selvakumar, Secretary and Assistant Secretary of the employees association.