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White Paper on MSP: Enact Agricultural Prices Stabilization Act
- Published on 17 January 2021
Statutory Minimum support price (MSP) is not a weird demand of farmers. It is actually a multi-dimensional fuzzy ball debated superficially by half-knowledge anchors and their guests on cockfight shows.
No one has disclosed how many committees recommended what and when on statutory MSP over more than 100 years. A timeline of vital recommendations made by major panels has been prepared later in this column to give a touch of White Paper (WP) for giving a new deal to agriculture.
If farmers-caring Government had cared for facts, it would have first published a WP on why it showed urgency to issue three farm ordinances. It should have rationalized NDA’s & UPA’s indifference towards the need for long-pending legislations, apart from MSP law.
Of the many pending legislations on agriculture, 5 deserve special mention: a new seed law, new pesticides law, a comprehensive fertiliser law, biotechnology regulatory authority law and agricultural biosecurity legislation.
Farmers are baffled at the majestic failure of all regimes from British Raj to Modi Government to compute bare minimum economical prices below which sale of vegetables and fruits becomes losing proposition.
Hence peasants’ justifiable suspicion about Union Government’s offer to set up a committee to study their demand for MSP law. This is because the term MSP has been left out of two new farm laws including one relating to contract farming. The existing rules pertaining to contract farming under Agriculture Produce Market Committee (APMC) Act in few States stipulated MSP-linked private transactions. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was once himself a champion of MSP in transactions between farmers and private entities. This is reflected in the 2011 Report of Chief Minister's Working Group (WG) on Consumer Affairs constituted by UPA regime chaired by Mr. Modi as Gujarat CM.
WG recommended: “Enforce MSP since intermediaries play a vital role in the functioning of the market and at times, they have advance contract with farmers. In respect of all essential commodities, we should protect farmer's interest by mandating through statutory provisions that no farmer-trader transaction should be below MSP, wherever prescribed”.
There are other reasons too for farmers’ distrust over Government’s offer to assure in writing that MSP would not be phased out. First, the Government ruled out enacting such a law in reply to a parliament question raised during July 2019. It was perhaps raised after Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) recommended such a legislation in March 2018.
Conflict Avoidance & Resolution Can Open Gateway to New India
- Published on 10 December 2020
Let Centre-States Clash over Farm Laws Be a Wake-up Call
(Conflict Avoidance. Image Courtesy: taxinidaonline.com)
“No Central Government, which is wise, will undertake a conflict over small matters….Can checks govern a country; every check means a conflict and every time a proposition is positively made in the Legislative Assembly and shaped into a policy, a check means an invitation to a public meeting, an invitation to an argument, sides being taken, appeals being made and a lot of misunderstanding. Whereas if they meet together, consult together and dispose of things together, we will not have conflicts and checks….It is only against dangers that checks are provided explicitly but in other matters we envisage a complete harmonious self-governing family working together but if we provide checks in a family, we go with a divorce document even before we marry”.
Alas, this Team India vision of late C. Rajagopalachari, Home Minister, is totally forgotten. His sage words, expounded in provisional Parliament during August 1951, are highly relevant today.
This is because conflicts of all sorts at all levels have become synonymous with vibrant democracy. This is due to complex inter-play of various factors notably bad governance and clash of rights.
Central policies, schemes and laws are thrust on the Nation as a fait accompli. Crucial bills are rarely referred to time-tested institution of joint committee/ select committee / standing committee of Parliament.
You name a subject & search for it on the Net. And you would find dozens of weblink to documents on conflicts over the searched subject. Every issue ranging from reserving beds for Covid-19 patients to farm laws turns into conflict to be resolved by the judiciary.
The Constitution is supposed to be the ultimate guide for the Nation. In actual practice, the Constitution itself has become the source of friction between the Centre, States and among the States. It needs to be written specially to avoid its misuse by the Centre and to avoid legislative conflicts. What applies to Constitution also applies to Central and State laws that trigger avoidable litigations.
This issue has been aptly addressed by a 2019 study titled ‘Cleaning Constitutional Cobwebs Reforming the Seventh Schedule’ submitted by Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy to 15th Finance Commission.
For the sake of simplicity, this column would focus on Centre-State legislative conflicts over farm laws & farmers’ protest. Before elaborating on this, we should note that conflict avoidance and resolution has turned out to be the Achilles heel for the NDA Government. This in spite of the fact that Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself is actually aware of conflicts & has spoken wisely on them at certain events.
Balance Euphoria over Corona Vaccine with Rationalism Shots
- Published on 30 October 2020
(Corona vaccine. Image Credit: taxindiaonline.com)
The political narrative on India’s war against Covid-19 continues to sustain new hopes. Every morning starts with positive dose of feel-good news on vaccines or how lockdown saved crores of lives.
The spindle of hope has turned many times over from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s stunning resolve on 25th March 2020 to win the Corona war in 21 days to solemn promise to give vaccine for each and every citizen.
This optimism must be balanced with basics and the history. It is replete with frantic efforts to develop and inject people with wrong vaccines during 1918 pandemics & vaccine developers getting shock at fast disappearance of virus as happened in 1957 pandemic and 2003 SARS epidemic.
It is not anyone’s contention that vaccine against novel corona viruses should not get highest priority. The efforts should not lead to grand illusion and false hope about corona vaccines serving as panacea.
It is here pertinent to quote Washington-based vaccine developer Sabin Institute (SI), which has been working vaccines against these viruses for several years. In a pre-covid write-up on its website, SI stated: “Past and ongoing pandemic threats from coronaviruses have prompted a new urgency to develop a pan-coronavirus vaccine as a global countermeasure”.
The plain truth is viruses causing influenza and its ilk keep mutating. Hence the composition of seasonal vaccines is decided at the start of season in cold countries. Public is encouraged to take shots of such vaccines at the start of flu season in developed countries. Efficacy of seasonal vaccines is an issue that puts off many from taking shots.
Amend Constitution & Relevant Laws to Legalize Act of God
- Published on 12 September 2020
The Centre’s two debt-burdening GST compensation options (GST-COs), offered to States, should trigger a serious debate on ‘Act of God’ (AoG).
India should provide constitutional and statutory protection to AoG that empowered Union Finance Ministry to contrive GST-COs. The AoG clarity on the Statute Book can help nip in the bud potential litigation in commercial contracts. It can also help arrest burgeoning trust deficit in the Centre-State relations.
Indian Constitution is outdated. It left out AoG. The name ‘God’, however, figures 13 times in the Constitution in relation to oath/swearing in of key personnel in the overall governance system.
Parliament should thus debate whether the Constitution should be amended to specify and define AoG to cap political liability of authorities. Should it be defined as exclusive privilege of the central government? Or, should all three tiers of governments have the right to renege or tweak their obligations towards the citizens? Should invocation of AoG enjoy immunity from litigation?
Statutory protection against any official decision taken in the name of AoG can be granted by taking a leaf from The Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act (FRBMA), 2003.
FRBMA says: “No suit, prosecution or other legal proceedings shall lie against the Central Government or any officer of the Central Government for anything which is in good faith done or intended to be done under this Act or the rules made thereunder”.
It adds: “No civil court shall have jurisdiction to question the legality of any action taken by, or any decision of, the Central Government, under this Act”.
Parliament should debate laws that require amendments to empower different stakeholders of economy to invoke AoG.
A fleeting look at Indian laws show that AoG finds mention only in three laws. None of them define AoG. The AoG-carrying laws are: The Railways Act, 1989 (RA), The Mines Act, 1952 and The Indian Carriage of Goods by Sea Act, 1925.