While allowing farmers to draw up to Rs 25,000 per week against crop
loans, the Finance Ministry has turned down the request of the
Agriculture Ministry to permit farmers to purchase seeds using
demonetised currencies of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000.
At a meeting on Tuesday, the Department of Economic Affairs cited the
surge of deposits in Jan Dhan accounts to counter Agriculture’s request
for allowing demonetised currencies for seed purchase. It argued that
this may become a conduit to offload black money.
It said that since 16 crore Jan Dhan accounts were already active in
the rural sector, these could be used by farmers to exchange currency or
withdraw cash for buying seeds and fertilisers.
Mohan Singh on November 15 wrote to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley
seeking exemptions available to airlines, railways, petrol pumps and
hospitals for all government-run seed agencies to sell seeds for rabi
crop until November 24.
Singh’s argument was that such exemption would allow farmers to
purchase certified quality seeds from public sector National Seeds
Corporation (NSC) rather than fall back upon low-yielding seeds saved
from their earlier produce.
This use of saved seeds, Singh wrote, would lower the national output
as well as put to waste the high-yielding seeds cultivated by NSC.
Keeping in view that the Rabi target has been fixed at 638.09 lakh
hectares of sown area, the Agriculture Minister requested that farmers
be allowed to buy seeds worth Rs 10,000 per day using old currency notes
until November 24.
As a security measure, he wrote that selling agencies such as NSC,
ICAR or state agriculture departments would collect photocopies of
identity cards and other details, and get them attested by farmers, if
required. Another safeguard could be that no refund of money or return
of seeds would be allowed for seeds purchased through old currency
notes, he added.
The country is at the commencement of Rabi sowing season and the best
time to sow wheat crop is starting November until December 10 after
which both quality and yield get affected. Until November 11, India had
sown Rabi crop over 146.85 lakh hectares which is 23 per cent of the
national target for this year. BY AMITAV RANJAN.
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