Bad policies of central govt resulting in migration
The Goan Network
The central government is not involving people at ground level while forming policies on agriculture and that is resulting in a lot of migration from villages to cities, which is a huge problem. This was the key take-away of the panel discussion on ‘Youth, Agriculture, Migration and Smart Cities’ during Difficult Dialogues event.
Ajay Jakhar, chairman, Bharat Krishak Samaj, said, “The UPA government realised in 2007 that farmers are poor and they came out with the Food Security Act to make sure that everyone gets food-grains. While the intent was good, the government banned the export of food-grains. At that time, price of wheat in international market was 50 per cent more than in India. This way, farmers were denied a chance to make money”
Jakhar continued, “Food prices went really up between 2008 and 2011. That’s when trouble started in places like Iraq and Syria”
This shows that the troubles which are perceived as political are basically due to food inflation.
Jakhar’s views were echoed by Kishalay Bhattacharjee, who is a senior journalist. Bhattacharjee said, “A nation where people don’t have livelihood is not a secure nation. Between 1991 and 2001, 7.1 million farmers quit farming. All this only results in more insecurity. India is at the most precarious point in its history.”
PBK Manikya, who is the working president of Tripura Pradesh Congress, was also on the panel. He said, “We have often seen in the North-East that there is no assessment of how many people are displaced due to large projects. So, although, the country may get some benefits out of these projects, these people become landless”
Jakhar continued, “Such bad policies by the central government will result in huge migration from villages to cities and then these cities will not be able to become smart-cities”
