Skip to main content

"Ruined" Gujarat greenhouse farmers seek loan waiver, threaten suicide, say Modi promise destroyed them

Stressed for the last several years, hundreds of enterprising Gujarat farmers who took up greenhouse projects are on warpath. Accusing the state government for failing to listen to their plight, they have said, they are all “deeply in debt” and would not compromise “anything less than loan waiver”.
Operating under the umbrella of Greenhouse Farmers’ Association (GFA), which has a membership of 750 out of about 2,283, who took up greenhouse projects, farmers’ representatives told a media conference, if the state government does not come to their rescue, they are left with “no other option but to commit suicide.”
Directly taking on Modi, who in 2010 gave greenhouse projects a fresh “impetus” with 50% state government subsidy on greenhouse structure, over and above 25% offered by the Centre on greenhouse development, a GFA statement said, “Many youths were attracted by Modi’s loud talk of providing new opportunity to youths in Gujarat. But it has come to a naught today – the young farmers attracted who took up greenhouse projects are all ruined.”
The statement added, “It is unfortunate that even seven years after the state government began supporting the greenhouse project, it was unable to call it agriculture. The result is, we have failed to get any advantages like crop insurance benefit or term loan.”
Seeking a loan waiver of about Rs 100 crore, five young GFA representatives – Darshan Nagarsheth, Tejas Patel, Jatin Patel, Vijay Patel and Sanket Zaveri – squarely blamed the state government for “completely misguiding” them and “pushing” into the “greenhouse ditch”, from where they have failed to come out.
Nagarsheth, who left a lucrative management job in Mumbai to begin his greenhouse startup in 2012, told mediapersons, they were shown “rosy pictures” of house greenhouse farming would flourish, increasing their farm output by 10 times, “without making any pilot projects.”
“Lured by huge subsidy offered to us, within one year we realized that the state government took a replica from Israel, and copied things from internet to dupe us. While the first crop was a success, next year onwards, we found, diseases struck our farmhouses, with no way to counter them”, he said.
“It was clear: Gujarat’s environment does not suit greenhouses. We are all in deep debt – on an average about Rs 45 lakh each. High bank interests at compound rate of 14% destroyed us further. Thankfully, last year, the Gujarat High Court gave a stay on banks confiscating our greenhouse farm lands – one acre each”, he added.
Pointing out that as of today “not more than 100 greenhouse farms survive” out of a total of 2,283 set up across India”, Nagarsheth said, “We found to our surprise that we could take up only three crops, capsicum, cucumber and rose. There was no support price to our produce. We were forced to sell cucumber at Rs 2 per kg, destroying all our income.”
GFA’s Jatin Patel added, “We have represented our case to everyone, including former chief minister Anandiben Patel, agriculture minister Chiman Sapariya, senior government officials of the agriculture department, others, but received no firm assurance.”
Earlier, RSS’ farmers’ wing, Bharatiya Kisan Sangh (BKS), had admitted that almost 90% crops in greenhouses have failed in North Gujarat, as extreme summer heat damage crops grown under in them, with farmers reeling under deep debt. In 2015, BKS demanded full waiver of loans and interests taken for greenhouse farming.

Comments

TRENDING

Trump’s research cuts 'may mean' advantage China: But will India leverage global brain drain to its advantage?

When I heard from a couple of NRI professionals—currently on work visas and engaged in research projects at American universities—that one of President Donald Trump's major policy thrusts was to cut federal funding to the country's top educational institutions, I was instantly reminded of what Prof. Kaushik Basu had said while delivering a lecture in Ahmedabad.

How the middle classes are returning to the BJP fold, be it Delhi or Gujarat: Mahakumbh, Sitharaman's budget

Whatever reasons may be offered for the Aam Aadmi Party's defeat in Delhi—whether it was the BJP's promises of more freebies than AAP, the shedding of ultra-nationalist slogans, or the successful demolition of Arvind Kejriwal's "Mr. Clean" image—my recent interaction with a group of middle-class individuals highlighted a notable trend. Those who had just begun to sit on the fence were now once again returning to the BJP fold.

How to turn India's e-waste problem, third largest, into opportunity? Simple: Offer industry incentives!

How should one interpret a major problem that may be bogging down a private consultant while preparing an industry-friendly report on a situation that adversely impacts society—especially when the consultant sees little possibility of progress in the supposed desired direction?

Mystical, mysterious, nature's marvel? Truth behind Gujarat’s so-called disappearing temple

I was a little surprised to read a story in Business Today, a publication that should have nothing to do with religion or spirituality, let alone superstition. Carried as one of the choices by Google News, whose algorithm decides which stories to feature, the story attempts to describe a natural phenomenon using terms such as "mysterious," "mystical," "marvel of nature," and "intriguing."

Google powered AI refuses to correct grammar of a 'balanced' piece on Trump sending chained immigrants to India!

This is a continuation of my blog on how, while the start-up-developed AI app DeepSeek is being criticized for consistently rejecting content related to China or Maoism, there appears to be no mention in Western media about why another app, developed by the powerful Google, Gemini, remains silent on Indian political issues.  

A Hindu alternative to Valentine's Day? 'Shiv-Parvati was first love marriage in Universe'

  The other day, I was searching on Google a quote on Maha Shivratri which I wanted to send to someone, a confirmed Shiv Bhakt, quite close to me -- with an underlying message to act positively instead of being negative. On top of the search, I chanced upon an article in, imagine!, a Nashik Corporation site which offered me something very unusual.  I don't know who owns this site, for there is nothing on it in the About Us link. It merely says, the Nashik Corporation  site   "is an educational and news website of the municipal corporation. Today, education and payment of tax are completely online." It goes on to add, "So we provide some of the latest information about Property Tax, Water Tax, Marriage Certificate, Caste Certificate, etc. So all taxpayer can get all information of their municipal in a single place.some facts about legal and financial issues that different city corporations face, but I was least interested in them."  Surely, this didn't intere...

World Hijab Day? Ex-Muslim women observe Feb 1 as No Hijab Day, insist: 'Put it on a Man'

I didn't know that there could ever be a thing as World Hijab Day until I received an email alert from Maryam Namazie of the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain (CEMB), stating that several ex-Muslim women's groups had observed the same day—February 1—as No Hijab Day! According to Namazie, the day "was created on February 1 as a direct response to World Hijab Day" to "illuminate the coercive and oppressive realities of the hijab as a pillar of sex apartheid and a war on women."

5% poor in India? Union govt claim debunked, '26.4% of population below poverty line'

A recent paper, referring to the Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES) 2022-23 of the Government of India (GoI), has debunked the official claim that poverty has substantially declined. Titled "Poverty in India: The Rangarajan Method and the 2022–23 Household Consumption Expenditure Survey", the paper —authored by scholars CA Sethu, LT Abhinav Surya, and CA Ruthu—states that "more than a quarter of India’s population falls below the poverty line."

Why burn Manusmriti? Why not preserve it to demonstrate, display historicity of casteism?

In a significant Facebook post, Rana Singh, former associate professor of English at Patna University, has revealed something that few seem to know. Titled "The Shudras in Manusmriti", Singh says,  because Manusmriti is discussed so often, he thought of reading it himself. “This book likely dates back to the 2nd or 3rd century BCE, and the presence of contradictory statements suggests that it is not the work of a single author,” he says in his Facebook post in Hindi, written in 2022 and recently reshared.