Govt denies media reports about bad effects of note ban on farmers

New Delhi:  The Union Minister of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Radha Mohan Singh denied such reports published in media. He asserted that there was no difficulty to the farmers for buying inputs for the Rabi season.

He further said that the government has allowed the farmers to use 500-1000 old currencies to buy seeds for Rabi season. Government distributed 124.87 lakh tonnes of wheat seed in 2016-17 against 95.83 lakh tonnes in 2015-16.

However, according to media reports, a report submitted by the Agriculture Ministry to the Parliamentary Committee on Finance on demonetization confirmed that millions of farmers got badly affected due to note ban.

Parliamentary Committee on Finance had sought reports from the Agriculture Ministry, Labour and Employment Ministry, Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises about the impact of note ban on these sectors. Ministry of agriculture submitted a report on 20^th November which confirmed the bad effects of demonetization on farmers.

The note ban which was introduced on 8^th November 2016 had coincided with the end of Kharif season and beginning of Rabi season. Thus, the farmers faced difficulties in selling the harvested produce as well as preparing for the Rabi cultivation.

Due to paucity of cash, the farmers had to sell their produce at distressed price and also, they could not purchase seed, fertilizer and other inputs for the Rabi sowing.

Even the big farmers faced difficulties in hiring farm laborers and could not pay their wages due to shortage of liquidity.