Dear Shri P Chidambaram
I gather from the news channels that you have delivered a please-all budget and that agriculture was the highlight of your budget. Out of curiosity I looked up your speech on the Internet, yeah we farmers can manage to access the internet every so often. I understand you have announced a packaged to waive farm loans.
Oh by the way I noticed that your speech has mentions agriculture 16 times and farmers 11 times in stark contrast to industries which get mentioned only 10 times and mqanufacturing which gets a mention only 6 times. I also noticed that banks and credit get mentioned as many times as agriculture. I get the message you are desperately wooing us farmers.
But then it got me thinking, what exactly are you wooing us with ?
Knowing that you have an economist in Dr. Manmohan Singh for a Prime Minister and you yourself have been marketed in the media as being reform oriented, I started to wonder if you are wooing us to make us farmers competitive and look beyond merely sustainable farming. So I looked up your speech and found rather interestingly that none of the references to “sustainable” were with reference to agriculture. I also found it interesting that the words “sustainability”, “competitive” or “competitiveness” find no mention in your entire speech.
Well I thought I should give you the benefit of doubt for you are an erudite and eloquent speaker and may have a wider choice of words at your disposal from your vast vocabulary.
So are you wooing us to help us farmers create more wealth for ourselves. Well again interesting results from your speech. You mention wealth only twice and that too only in your conclusion to speak not on how to help create more wealth but to merely make the point on distributing it equally.
So Mr. Finance Minister if agriculture which was the highlight of your speech and gets mentioned 16 times but you dont speak either of making us more competitive beyond merely sustainable farming nor do you speak of wealth creation, how exactly are you helping the Indian Farmer ?
A waiver of Rs 50,000 crore worth of loans to small and marginal farmers and a settlement scheme for other farmers that would cost the exchequer another Rs 10,000 crore sounds generous and large-hearted but I have a minor problem.
Firstly, it is not your money to be generous Dr. Manmohan Singh !
Secondly this largesse that you have just announced is Government funded one time amnesty. Three crore marginal and small farmers would benefit from it while an additional one crore farmers will benefit from a one time rebate of 25 per cent on payment of outstanding loans. But then this is for overdue loans.
What happens the day after the loans are waived ?
I noticed that you propose to invest more in irrigation and provide insurance while subsidizing fertilisers.
This populism of yours may keep you in business but it does little by way of making us independent and viable. What is worse it leaves a large part of the workforce unskilled and dependent on an uncompetitive sector which itself is further ever more dependent on your benevolence and at the mercy of your inefficient and more often than not corrupt bureaucracy.
I also noticed that your political opposition in the Lok Sabha was shell shocked with this populism of yours calling an election stunt. The BJP has described your loan write-off as too little too late.
I am not surprised that the Opposition is at a loss on how to react to this largesse of yours for they have all along been advocating the same kind of populism. I have these words for Mr. Advani.
Competitive populism is a bottom-less pit into which many a political fortunes have sunk. If you havent already learnt this lesson from Narendra Modi in Gujarat it is no wonder you are left with a sour tone in parliament complaining that the Congress is one up on you in populist rhetoric. If only your party went beyond the day after the loans were written off with to articulate a vision to make us competitive and a roadmap for us?to create wealth you would have sounded far more credible and incisive in your criticism of the UPA’s populism.
Unfortunately that was not to be.
I once read a piece on Offstumped on how your recommendations to solve agriculture indebtedness had 46 ideas to get us into more debt only 1 idea to get us out of all debt. That in a nutshell sums up how lop-sided your approach to solving the problems faced by agriculture are.
In closing I just have this to say.?We are not here to provide you with food security. We are here to create wealth for ourselves and those dependent on us.? If you really want to help us, create avenues for us to either acquire scale and get competitive?or to exit by encashing the real market value of our assets while equipping us with new skills. Dont merely treat the symptoms of that which ails us only to realize the day after that the disease lingers on.
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[...] http://offstumped.nationalinterest.in/2008/02/29/union-budget-2007-2008-unwritten-letter-from-a-farm... [...]
FM waves the debts of farmers….to the tune of 60,000 crores…..I wonder….where FM is going to get this huge sum of money….
Also ….only 50 crores for Tiger Conservation……i can understand…..Tigers do not vote …and even if they were to vote….they do not have numbers…….
Do you mean to say “sustenance farming” when you talk of sustainable farming? The former is what most of our people (a large proportion of the 60% of India that is engaged in agriculture) live by. Making barely enough to feed themselves with no surplus whatsoever. So when things fail, they don’t eat. If this is what the FM/PM and LKA are supporting, we can’t but beat our heads on stone. Nothing has been said about stagnant growth in agriculture, exploring options to generate surpluses, etc. That’s all too difficult and the UPA has no clue about what to do. See nice rhyme!
Sharat
Survey : Tiger population plummets in India
Tiger population 1,411 in India: Report
BS Reporter / New Delhi February 13, 2008
The much-awaited count of tigers left in India is out — 1,411 is the number that has been given by the ‘Status of Tigers Co-predators and Prey in India – 2008’ report, released by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA).
But the report has raised many questions and officials of the NTCA themselves remained non-committal on whether the population of the tiger was rising or declining.
Dr Rajesh Gopal, member secretary, Project Tiger, said: “The population of tigers in the tiger reserve areas is healthy. It is the forests areas surrounding the notified areas that are of concern.”
The previous report for tigers in India was released in 2001 and put the number at 3,642. But wildlife experts have argued that the pugmark method of counting used then was “faulty and prone to overestimation”.
This time around Dr Gopal, without directly admitting to the faults in the pugmark system, said camera traps and remote sensing data was extensively used in the recent count.
http://www.hindu.com/2008/03/01/stories/2008030155291300.htm
[...] offstumped publishes a letter from a farmer to the finance minister, [...]
Hi yossarin,
I am in complete agreement with what you have written. At the outset, there is nothing wrong in helping farmers, who have been distressed for years. Having said that this waiver is akin to giving a man fish rather than teaching him how to fish. It also dents the banking sector, which though will be compensated as promised by the FM, will feel relcutant to provide debt to farmers knowing fully well that it will be a blow to their bottomlines. The government has also let it be known that ‘take loans and dont repay’ is the mantra as far as rural credit is concerned.
The agriculture sector is growing at little more than 2.5 % and in this time of rising global food grain prices, there is a crying need to fundamentally change how the sector operates. Better irrigation, crop diversification, relooking at land holding patterns all need to addressed. Throwing money or waiving it off with no strings attached is not the answer.
A number of BJP leaders & supporters had all of a sudden turned India’s hapless farmer’s biggest sympathisers just before the budget…
The BJP appeared crestfallen as finance minister P. Chidambaram announced the sops for farmers in his budget speech.
Its leaders tried to put up some fight by crying that it was too little too late, but the tax relief to the middle class left them speechless.
Later, the party’s official reaction harped on the too-little-too-late theme. L.K. Advani almost reluctantly asked Chidambaram why he had not helped farmers and the common man to this extent during the past four years.
Meanwhile, former US deputy secretary of state Strobe Talbott’s remarks that the saffron party, which now opposes the Indo-US nuke deal, was ready to settle for much less when in power…
BJP hit back accusing the former American diplomat of being ignorant.
As long as our Finance minister does not print 60,000 Crores of money and settle the accounts in the process inflating the money value….i am happy.
There are two things one needs to consider regarding the farmer loans.
First of all, this is obviously the wrong-headed way of doing things. One can either forgive loans, or could have used the $15 billion to build rural infrastructure, check dams, drip irrigation, rural connectivity, satellite schools, mobile clinics, e-governance and internet connectivity. It’s not like it hasnt been done by a certain gujurati ‘merchant of death’. But that would be too complicated for these Kangressi idiots, it would involve getting something done and getting their gandhi kurtas dirty. Just like the rural employment scheme, its a costly political stunt, that is highly unlike to change the situation of the people on the grass root level. Just hope the money actually goes to the farmers and not the Congressi middle man, rahul baba has ironically already said only 5% of govt money reaches the people.
Secondly for people that are worried that this might somehow change the outcome of the coming elections, the fears are untrue. The kangressi’s have proven themselves to be enemies of the state between supporting terrorists, not fighting maoists, giving into traitor communist blackmail to stay in power instead of legitimizing india’s nuclear weapons and undertaking genuine poverty-reducing economic reforms. Indian farmers may be poor and illiterate, they are not stupid.
One saw the electoral impact of the much touted rural employment scheme, zilch. Congress have lost every recent major election since the scheme came out. Congressi and Commi traitors days in power are finished, it our time now, it’s Modi time.
What the opponents of this loan waiver do not understand is that there is no way in hell anyone can recover these loans from the marginal and small farmers. So the argument that by waiving these loans – the Govt is making the banks bleed is absolutely naive..
In fact, for the banks this is a windfall – as they will get compensated for their NPAs which had gone bad and had to be written-off anyway.
Off-course the tax payers have to pay for it. The point is that we had to pay for it anyway, loan-waiver or no laon-waiver !
For most of the marginal and small farmers, this may give them a new leash of life and an opportunity to refocus on agriculture or other vocations rather than visiting the courts and deal with the administration.
For the Government it is a matter of priority – whether to single-mindedly push economic reforms and build infrastructure with their bouyant revenue resources, ignoring the plights of the “suffering India” who live for the day for their existence. Any amount of economic growth which is not inclusive will backfire for this country.
The “shining India” wants Govt’s entire focus and resources to be spent on tax cuts, open FDI, infrastructure development, privatisation of public enterprises and removal of subsidies. These measures will take India on the high growth path and in the longer term may even pull the “suffering India” out of their misery in an indirect manner – but the short-to-mediaum term will be so back breaking for them that most of them will perish.
The Union budget only allocates funds – but the benefits will come if they are implemented on the ground. This remains a challenge for all political parties including the Congress, BJP, and the Left. The malaise runs much deeper in our society which is highly clanish and corrupt.
Those who think that BJP is an answer to that are highly mistaken. Yes there may be that one odd BJP/Congress/CPI(M) Chief Minister who has a better record than others. They are anyway doing their jobs inspite of the Govt at the Centre.
Things will change for the better but they will take their own time in a democracy like ours, as long as there is a Govt by either Congress or BJP at the Centre. To fast forward our development we will need a dictator and an emergency rule to change things overnight. Our political system is unlikely to allow that.
>> What the opponents of this loan waiver do not understand is that there is no way in hell anyone can recover these loans from the marginal and small farmers. So the argument that by waiving these loans – the Govt is making the banks bleed is absolutely naive.. >>
If you mean that small and marginal farmers are by their very nature unlikely to ever repay their loans, you are right of course. There is no reason for waiving a farmer loan in Mandya just because farmers in Vidharba committed suicide. You certainly have not addressed private loans which are a leading cause of suicide, because God knows the repossessing capabilities of private moneylenders. (read large landowners).
There are farmers who do pay back loans dutifully. Now this blanket waiver without compensating them has taught them a bitter lesson. Their neighbours are laughing at them. Now a farm loan just means free money.
The banks on the other hand have also learnt their lesson. They dont have to do undertake even minimum diligence, not even bother recollecting payments. The coop bank officer who dutifully persuaded many to make payments is now the most hated figure. He is probably feeling downright stupid now. I happen to know one such person.
The tax payers would not have had to pay for it if there had been no loan waiver. There are other ways like restructuring loans, waiving interest, or even full loan waiver depending on compelling local circumstance (like Vidharba perhaps). That would be the responsible way to handle it, while maintaining some integrity of the credit system.
The banks wont bleed, India will.
The rest of your post about BJP etc is moot. It is unlikely anyone would openly oppose this kind of measure, because that would be like walking off a cliff.
Dear RC,
I have one question to you, Does not bank waive, rather write off, the loan of big businessman of company sometimes?
If you look the total amount long pending loan in country then farm sector is negligible. I am surprised nobody talk about it, is it becuase every political party want to stay in the good book of the business community to get the donation?
I feel loan waiving is a bad example set by government, which every future government will likely do with the pretext of the demand of opposition, such as BJP did this time to be a farmer friendly, but BJP did not do any long term plan during his rule for farm sector.
[...] « Union Budget 2007-2008 – Unwritten letter from a farmer [...]
[...] If this was not a serious matter of life and death one could have afforded a chuckle or two from this stale Ajit joke that Sonia Gandhi has heaped on the nation’s farmers. [...]
http://www.gujjubulls.com/blog/kingshare/union-budget-2007-2008-unwritten-letter-farmer
>> Does not bank waive, rather write off, the loan of big businessman of company sometimes? >>
There has been no blanket waiver of small industry loans. Yet, plenty of businessmen with political connections have managed to pull it off.
Yes, big industry is the biggest culprit of all. When the hotel is burning, the guests are taking off with the furniture. Do you put out the fire or stop the theft ? Kiran Mazumdar Shaw gave the budget 9/10 presumably because her lobbying had some effect on this or that tax. Never mind she does not care that infrastructure received just 12,500 cr with no new initiatives. Isnt she the same person who was on TV lambasting poor Deve Gowda for poor Bangalore roads ? What gives ?
The SEZ policy is the grand theft larceny of our times. This is of course fully backed by the industry moguls. Read my blog for more.
The problem is not the waiver per-se, but the fact that some farmers actually need this. Just like social justice. Some castes need it, so it is legitimate to use them as poster material to hijack the entire program for those who might not. The castes that actually need it are left high and dry, while the judiciary has not yet insisted on data to quantify the effects.
PC is never a fan of facts and data. It would not take too much to pin point those belts who require the aid. The waiver can then be applied selectively, thereby preserving the integrity of the credit environment.
He claimed yesterday on TV that it was impossible to ascertain the number of people who were indebted to private moneylenders. Really ? So a blanket nationwide waiver, it is. Without data, the politicians are like God. Havent you seen it elsewhere ?
Why should a farmer onsidering suicide but owning 10 acres land in Telengana not get the waiver, when a farmer owning 5 acres in Mandya gets it ?
Dont try too hard, no one can answer these things ? In fact, no one is supposed to be asking these questions in the first place. Social commentators and bloggers have all but shut shop in the face of these hard questions.
These “dataless” policies give them magical powers. They can go to the countryside tomorrow and promise to up the land holding ceiling from 5 acres to 10 acres, as if there was merit in the first number.
It is going to get harder for them to pull it off without data in the age of the internet. That is the good news.
Hi ,
Mr.PC”s sudden intimacy to farmers is really strange and his hiatus with industry and infrastructure mantra is put in the back burner.The amnesia of UPA Govt.on river linking project as a national importance to alleiviate poverty and improve our agrarian economy(that is what every politician say)-is mentioned nowhere.The apathy of each and every government which succeeds towards rural people is really pathetic.
Hi ,
Mr.PC”s sudden intimacy to farmers is really strange and his hiatus with industry and infrastructure mantra is put in the back burner.The amnesia of UPA Govt.on river linking project as a national importance to alleiviate poverty and improve our agrarian economy(that is what every politician say)-is mentioned nowhere.The apathy of each and every government which succeeds towards rural people- is really pathetic.
[...] Which brings us to the present times with the Sonia Gandhi-Manmohan Singh duo encashing the Nandigram cheque to set not just the timing of the next election but the agenda as well with the 60,000 crore giveaway in the 2008-2009 budget. [...]
[...] Which brings us to the present times with the Sonia Gandhi-Manmohan Singh duo encashing the Nandigram cheque to set not just the timing of the next election but the agenda as well with the 60,000 crore giveaway in the 2008-2009 budget. [...]
[...] Offstumped Unwritten Letter from a farmer to the FM [...]
[...] And for a somewhat politically neutral pavilion, you might read Offstumped [...]