New Delhi: All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee (AIKSCC), a coalition of 193 farmers’ organisations from across the country, will lobby for the enactment of two private bills – Farmers’ Freedom from Debt Bill and Guaranteed Fair and Remunerative Prices Bill – to ensure comprehensive debt relief to farmers and remunerative prices for the farm produce in the forthcoming session of the Parliament.
The Bills, submitted by Parliamentarians Raju Shetti and K K Ragesh in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha respectively, have the support of 21 political parties. The AIKSCC has also submitted the Bills to President Ram Nath Kovind and requested him to call for a special session of the Parliament to discuss the agrarian crisiss and pass these bills.
"We now intend to meet all Members of Parliament in their own constituencies, to ensure their support when the Bills get listed for discussion and passing during the upcoming monsoon session", stated AIKSCC leaders.
"The President was positive. In our meeting with the President, we explained to him that this is the very first time in our history that farmers have created two Bills for, by and of farmers, that too after elaborate consultations. We also brought up the fact that there is a precedent with regard to a special session when the then Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee convened a special session of the Parliament in December 2003 to discuss the sugarcane crisis in the country in the light of the death of 3 sugarcane farmers in Manderva, Basti district of Uttar Pradesh. If we can have a special midnight session for GST, why not for addressing farmers’ crisis?" they said.
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