Bharatiya Kisan Sangh (BKS), the farmers’ wing of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Singh, is strongly opposing the amendments sought to be made by Central government to the Right Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 on the ground that it will rob small and marginal farmers of their little holdings.
The State branch of BKS alleged that allowing exemption of lands from ‘social impact assessment’, ‘special provisions for safeguarding food security’ and ‘consent’ clauses of the Act was detrimental to the farmers and nation at large.
Fearing that the Central government would use all its influence to get its set of amendments ratified during the current session of Parliament itself, the farmers’ outfit was staging protests across the country and planned to intensify the stir if the Centre ignored the plea of lakhs of farmers.
BKS State Legal Cell convener G. Krishna Kumar told The Hindu that farmers would be further marginalised if the Bill gets the Parliamentary nod.
BKS had suggested 10 amendments of its own to protect the farmers’ interests and it hoped that the government would not take a unilateral decision. “We are happy that the Congress is strongly opposing the controversial legislation. It is the issue at stake that matters for us, not which party opposes it,” Mr. Kumar said.
BKS was also demanding that the Central government revise the Minimum Support Price (MSP) of various crops and ensure that farmers got prices that were a few notches higher than the MSP. It wanted the Polavaram project in Andhra Pradesh to be completed at the earliest.
BKS wants the Centre to revise the Minimum Support Price of various crops
