People's Democracy

GUJARAT

Modi Govt Hikes Power Tariffs

         Arun Mehta

THE BJP government of Gujarat has once again demonstrated its anti-people and anti-kisan character by enhancing the power rates for agricultural uses from Rs 500 to Rs 1260 per horsepower, dealing a severe blow to the farming community. The rural population in Gujarat had never before faced such a deadly attack on their main profession. Their exasperation has been so great that power consumers have decided not to pay the electricity bills, come what may.

This recent electricity rate hike by the Narendra Modi government of Gujarat has only sent one message across the state --- that the BJP and its state government have consistently been anti-rural and have broken all their promises made to the rural people at election time.

A very obvious breach of promise was about enhancing the allocation for crop insurance scheme to Rs 10 lakh. While the promise was loudly made time and again, the real deed has been to the contrary. If the allocation for crop insurance was Rs 10.03 lakh in 1998-99, it came down to Rs 7.13 lakh in 1999-2000 and rose up to Rs 8.90 lakh in 2000-2001, but only to fall down again to Rs 6.56 lakh in 2001-2002. The current year’s allocation is Rs 6.65 lakh only.

If the allocation for poultry development was Rs 7 lakh in 1998-99 and Rs 8 lakh in 2000-2001, it was reduced to zero in 2001-2002 and 2002-2003.

The BJP had promised that its government would buy the entire Bt Cotton crop in the state. But the Modi government has not spent even a paisa for the purpose.

The GLDC was allotted Rs 9 crore grant in 1998-99 but, of this amount, Rs 4 crore 84 lakh remained unspent. Similarly, Rs 57.68 lakh were not spent in 2001-2002 also. 

This year, only Rs 1.50 lakh has been spent for the small-lake and edge-end cultivators. The amount spent for them was Rs 79.95 lakh in 2000-2001 and was then reduced to Rs 55.43 lakh in 2001-2002.

As against Rs 18.48 crore spent on accidental insurance help in 1999-2000, the Gujarat government spent only Rs 6.48 crore in 2001-2002. The amount in the current year stands at Rs 3.62 crore only. Under the Kisan Credit Yojana, only 6 lakh have received any benefits while the promise was about benefiting 60 lakh.

It is therefore not surprising that compared to 1998-99, agricultural production has declined sharply --- rice by 53.54 per cent, bajra by 35.33 per cent, juvar by 50.93 per cent, maize by 58.48 per cent, tur dal 68.8 per cent, mung by 44.93 per cent, aranda by 8.06 per cent, and cotton by 42.19 per cent. The overall decline in production has been 52.67 per cent, hitting 25 to 35 per cent of the small peasants hard.

As a result, between 1998-99 and 2000-2001, Gujarat’s share in the country’s overall agricultural production has declined to 1.30 per cent from 2.73 per cent in case of rice, to 11.66 per cent from 18.43 per cent in case of bajra, to 11.06 per cent from 28.71 per cent in case of ground nut, to 12.03 per cent from 31.76 per cent in case of maize.