Editorial
Card and cash for farmers
Useful scheme, implement it efficiently
THE government's decision to introduce the Agri-input Assistance Card and Cash Assistance for 1.82 crore farmers is certainly a move in the right direction, given the sector's crucial role in our national economy. The farmers have for years been the real driving force behind the good performance of the agriculture sector.
Providing the farmers with necessary logistical and financial support for raising food grain production should always be a matter of top priority. The government has also taken the necessary steps to remove procedural complexities, so that the farmers can easily get the card and cash assistance. It is no doubt a welfare scheme for the farmers that will come in very handy for them, particularly when they are cash-strapped. We saw in the past how they suffered due to non-availability and high prices of fertilisers and diesel. Obviously, the facilities that the government has decided to offer them will help boost production. We believe the prime minister's optimism, that it will bring about welcome changes, is well founded.
However, a huge scheme like it cannot be implemented without the bureaucracy and local political leadership working in tandem, honestly and efficiently. If experience is anything to go by, we witnessed many times in the past that political interference coupled with mismanagement and corruption completely neutralised many good moves of the government. The decision makers have to bear in mind that the possibility of corruption and irregularities creeping in cannot be ruled out while implementing a countrywide programme on such a scale.
The prime minister has asked the government officials to discharge their duties with a sense of commitment. We fully endorse her point but it is equally important that the programme does not assume any partisan character. Only the genuine farmers should be its beneficiaries.
The government is clearly ahead of all its predecessors in adding the element of dynamism to the agriculture sector. It has set its priority right as the runaway population growth and the global price hike of food grain make it doubly important for us to maintain the agriculture sector's productivity. The renewed emphasis on this sector will not only help the farmers but also initiate some new thoughts on how to support the agriculture sector and raise its overall performance. It is no doubt an innovative project, which will translate the theoretical stress on farmers' well-being into a tangible and useful scheme.
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