(PTI)
The Centre has told the Supreme Court that it aims to double the income of farmers by 2022 to tackle suicides among them. The Ministry of Agriculture also proposed to make special efforts to ensure adequate flow of credit in under-serviced areas, eastern states and Jammu and Kashmir. “It is submitted that the government is addressing the low income of the farmers. Agrarian distress as manifest from large number of farmers living below poverty line and unfortunate incidents of suicides can be addressed by enabling farmers to increase their income.
“With this understanding, the government is targeting to double the income of farmers by 2022. To achieve this, department of agriculture, cooperation and farmers’ welfare has constituted an inter ministerial committee to examine various dimensions of farmers’ income and to recommend an appropriate strategy,” the status report said.
The matter was listed before a bench of justices M B Lokur and Deepak Gupta which took on record the status report in which the government said it was implementing and promoting schemes to reduce cost of cultivation in order to realise net positive returns for farmers and the National Policy for Farmers (NPF), 2007 was also being reviewed by it.
The report, which came on a PIL filed by Punjab-based NGO Youth Kamal Organization, through its president G S Happy Mann, seeking steps to prevent farmers’ suicides, said “a plan of action was prepared by an inter-ministerial committee set up by the government for operationalisation of NPF, 2007.”
