By IT Correspondent
Mumbai, Oct. 1:
The Maharashtra government withdrew its August order to implement the new farm laws, recently passed by the NDA after Congress threatened to boycott the cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
The state cabinet also decided to set up its sub-committee to study the subject and take an appropriate decision after its report is received and in the meanwhile over the implementation of the farms acts.
In fact the Maharashtra government had already issued notification on August 10, 2020 directing all Agricultural Produce Marketing Committees (APMC) and district agriculture cooperatives to strictly implement three farm ordinances issued by the Union Government.
The Maharashtra Government led by Uddhav Thackeray (Shiv Sena) was already in a dilemma over the implementation of these agriculture reform laws, recently passed by the Parliament, after Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) opposed the farm laws, calling them “anti-farmer”.
Last week, deputy Maharashtra chief minister and NCP leader Ajit Pawar had announced that the state government would not implement the agriculture reform laws. On Monday, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi had advised the states ruled by the party to inspect all possibilities of legislation under the Constitution’s Article 254(2) to negate the “anti-agricultural laws” and to prevent the “grave injustice” being done to farmers.
Maharashtra Congress chief Balasaheb Thorat had also claimed that all the three ruling parties (Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress…the coalition partners in the government) were opposed to the bills.
President Ram Nath Kovind gave his assent to the three bills – The Farmers Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020, The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Service Bill, 2020, and The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill, 2020, on September 27,2020 the bills became the acts.
Over a dozen opposition parties had urged President Kovind not to sign the contentious bills, alleging that they were passed “unconstitutionally” in “complete disregard” of parliamentary norms. However the government maintained that these landmark legislations would make farmers self-reliant.
The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020 aims to permit the sale of agricultural produce outside the mandis regulated by the APMCs constituted by different state legislations. The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, 2020, provides for contract farming. The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill 2020 deregulates the production, supply, distribution of food items like cereals, pulses, potatoes, onion and edible oilseeds.