किसानों की आय दोगुनी करने के नाम पर लॉन्च हुआ PM-AASHA असल में खेती के निजीकरण की कोशिश बन गया है। MSP को सुरक्षित रखने के लिए बनाए गए PDPS सिस्टम वही किसानों का साथ छोड़ रहे हैं, जिनके लिए ये बने थे। हमारा नया वीडियो देखें।
PM AASHA में सामने आई मुश्किलों पर Shreegireesh Jalihal की पूरी रिपोर्ट पढ़ें। जहां नीति आयोग, योगी सरकार, और एक्सपर्ट्स ने केंद्र सरकार को इस घोटालेबाज़ स्कीम के बारे में पहले ही चेताया था।
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Why would any government copy a scam-riddled model that has failed? The Modi government did. And guess what? It failed again. What we are talking about is the price protection scheme for farmers, officially known as Price Deficiency Payment System (PDPS). It was the key part of the PM AASHA scheme launched in 2019 to protect farmers from fluctuations in prices of pulses and oilseeds.
The price deficiency payment system promised to top up the earnings if farmers earned less than the government-fixed Minimum Support Price (MSP) for pulses and oilseeds. The Union government had adopted the scheme from Madhya Pradesh despite the state government scrapping it within six months of launch. The reason: A flaw in the scheme’s design allowed traders to manipulate and rig prices.
Internal documents reveal that quite a few had warned the Union government against scaling up a failed scheme nationally. The government’s think tank Niti Aayog raised concerns. The majority of states said no to the scheme, including the BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh government which said the model could lead to cartelisation.
Researchers commissioned to study the state model’s fiasco and independent experts warned against adopting the scheme. They all said, in more or less the same words, that the state’s model has to be rewired before scaling it up nationally. But the Modi government pushed ahead with the scheme, and sold it as a boon for farmers. But why? Maybe to reap election dividends. The scheme was rolled out ahead of the 2019 election and was prominently plastered across BJP’s manifesto.
As The Reporters' Collective previously reported, the scheme launched by Modi actually served as a dummy while the actual job of supporting farmers was done by an older UPA-era direct procurement scheme. A budget trick clubbed the two together to make the newly launched PDPS scheme appear larger than it actually is. PM AASHA is an example of the government’s impulsive and underfunded policy decisions that talk a good game of assisting farmers but fall short on real solutions. They merely serve the purpose of making an impression before crucial elections.
What’s worse? Internally, the government admitted what it would not publicly — that it’s anxious about putting more money into the hands of farmers for fear of inflation.
Read the full story by Shreegireesh Jalihal here:
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Reporter: Shreegireesh Jalihal
Story Editor: Anoop George Philip
Cameraperson: Tapasya
Video Editor: Manas Gurung
