Punjab Agriculture Minister Nabha tables resolution against three farm laws

Terming the three farm laws as attack on federal structure, Punjab Agriculture Minister Randeep Singh Nabha on Thursday presented the legislation for condemnation of three farm laws and demanded immediately repeal these laws for safeguarding the peasantry.

This specially convened session of Punjab Vidhan Sabha notes with concern that at the time of the passage of the contentious bills in Rajya Sabha, the opposition’s demand for division by count was not accepted.

The resolution says that the entry 33 of the concurrent list relates to trade and commerce and agriculture is neither trade nor commerce. The farmer is neither a trader nor is he engaged in commercial activity. They (farmers) are simply cultivators/growers/producers, who brings his produce in APMC market for selling it, either at MSP or at a price dictated by trader.

The Punjab Vidhan Sabha deplores the act of the Union Government of misleading the parliament by wrongfully interpreting the term foodstuff in Entry 33 (b) of the concurrent list to be the same as agriculture stuff(agricultural produce) and therefore made a questionable yet dishonest attempt to achieve indirectly what it could not do directly .

The Punjab Vidhan Sabha reminds the Union Government that APMC Acts have constitutional validity and sanction. These are State laws enacted under the presumption that agriculture and agricultural marketing is a State subject. The regulated Mandis established under APMC Acts have a legal foundation, infrastructure and a well-defined mechanism of documenting each and every purchase done by a trader or a government procurement agency. On the other hand the unregulated markets are akin to spurious trade centers without any infrastructure, without any institutional support and without any accountability.

The Punjab Vidhan Sabha strongly deprecates and condemns the efforts of the Union Government aimed at systematic dismantling of farmer friendly regulated mandis (APMC Mandis) and replacing them with trader friendly unregulated mandis. The Punjab Vidhan Sabha feels concerned at the unfair concessions extended to the traders and corporations of allowing purchases from unregulated markets without paying market fee, rural development fee etc. and thus providing unfair advantage to unregulated markets vis-à-vis regulated mandis.

This will eventually lead to shifting of trade from the APMC mandis to the private mandis apart from causing fiscal loss to the State Government and adversely affecting rural development.

This special session of the Punjab Vidhan Sabha reminds the Union government that 86% of the farmers have meager land holdings who along with other rural work force like carpenter, weaver, mason and unskilled labourers form the backbone of rural economy. Union Government through these contentious laws is paving the way to dispossess them of their lands and avocations and place them at the mercy of corporates.