On October 20, 2020, Punjab became the first state in the country to formally reject the Centre’s contentious farm laws, with the state assembly unanimously passing a resolution rejecting the legislations and the proposed Electricity (Amendment) Bill. The state government has asked for an immediate annulment of the laws, along with a new ordinance to protect the minimum support prices (MSPs) for farm produce and ensure continued procurement by the Government of India.
The Punjab government pledged to safeguard the interests of the state’s farmers who are concerned that the central legislation would deprive them of government-fixed MSPs and put them at the mercy of big agribusinesses.
After a five-and-a-half-hour discussion, four bills were unanimously passed by all members of the ruling Congress, the opposition Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), and the Lok Insaaf Party (LIP) present in the House.
After the passage of the bills, Punjab CM Capt Amarinder Singh and leaders of opposition parties handed over the four bills cleared by the assembly to Governor VP Singh Badnore at Raj Bhawan in Chandigarh.
The CM had sought an appointment with President RamNath Kovind between November 2 and 5, 2020, and all Punjab legislators would together go to meet him to seek his intervention in the interest of the state.
The state also seeks to reserve the powers to levy a fee on private entities for buying the produce of farmers anywhere in the state as well as regulate or prohibit the supply of and impose stockholding limits on essential food items.
The House also adopted a resolution which demanded the annulment of the three ‘anti-farmer’ laws and a proposed central Electricity Bill on power tariffs, which seeks to bar states from offering power subsidies, along with the promulgation of a fresh ordinance making the procurement of food grains at MSPs a statutory right of farmers.
The CM had introduced three farm bills on the second day of the special session of the house—The Farmers Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Special Provisions and Punjab Amendment Bill, 2020; The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services (Special Provisions and Punjab Amendment Bill, 2020; The Essential Commodities (Special Provisions and Punjab Amendment) Bill, 2020; and a fourth bill The Code of Civil Procedure (Punjab Amendment) Bill, 2020 to ‘save the peasantry of Punjab’. These bills are meant to counter the Centre’s laws.
What the bills say: This bill provides that no sale/purchase shall be done below the MSP and violation of the same shall invite imprisonment and fines. The bill seeks to amend sections 1(2), sections 19 and 20 of the Centre’s Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020. It also proposes to add new sections.
The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) (Special Provisions and Punjab Amendment) Bill, 2020, also seeks to amend sections 1(2), 14 and 15 of the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020 to ensure that sale or purchase of wheat or paddy in the state is not allowed below the MSP. The amendment bill also seeks to provide for punishment for harassment of farmers or payment of less price to the farmers by inserting new sections 6 to 11.
To protect the consumers from hoarding and black-marketing agricultural produce to secure and protect the interests and livelihood of farmers, farm labourers, the state government has brought in The Essential Commodities (Special Provisions and Punjab Amendment) Bill, 2020.
The bill seeks to amend the Centre’s ‘The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020’ by amending section 1(2) and section 3(1A) of the Essential Commodities Act, 1955. It seeks to ensure status quo ante as on June 4, 2020 with regard to implementation of the Central Act.
The fourth bill introduced by the chief minister provides relief to the farmers from attachment of their land not exceeding 2.5 acres. The Code of Civil Procedure (Punjab Amendment) Bill, 2020 seeks to insert a provision for exemption of agriculture land not exceeding 2.5 acres from Section 60 of The Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, which provides for attachment/decree of various properties—moveable and immoveable.
Courtesy: Tatkal News, The Wire