New Gujarat govt death compensation to farmers "not applicable" to landless, sharecroppers, tribal cultivators

Sagar Rabari

By A Representative
Gujarat's top farmers' leader Sabar Rabari has said that there is "nothing new" in the announcement made by deputy chief minister Nitin Patel regarding increase in accidental death compensation to farmers from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 2 lakh, and for serious injuries from Rs 50,000 to Rs 1 lakh.
In a statement, Rabari has pointed out that the announcement had been made several years ago when Anandiben Patel was Gujarat chief minister, adding, "In insofar as farmers are concerned, the government headed by the Vijay Rupani-Nitin Patel duo has proved itself to be a miser. Anandiben Patel had announced that the death compensation would be Rs 4 lakh. Instead of implementing her announcement, this government has reduced the amount by half."
Further, Rabari regretted, only those farmers and their families who have land titles in their name have been included for compensation. "The reality is, Gujarat has a large number of landless agricultural workers. Many of them also work on the farmers' fields as sharecroppers. One wonders, are they not farmers? Why have they not been included?"
Similarly, he adds, "A large number of tribal farmers of eastern belt of Gujarat have been handed over cultivation rights over the land they have been cultivating. The cultivation right certificates have a paper value. Most of these tribal farmers do not have any land entitlement, hence would be devoid of any compensation. Does the government not consider them farmers?"

Comments

Xi Jinping’s visit to USA: Recognition that China can't be contained?

By Vijay Prashad President Xi Jinping’s forthcoming visit to the United States must be understood as more than an encounter between two heads of state, but it must be seen as an encounter between two possible futures. In one future, the United States imposes a spiral of confrontation against China. Trade disputes harden into economic warfare, then economic warfare intensifies into technological blockades, technological blockades produce military encirclement, and finally military encirclement creates incidents, and incidents the danger of becoming an unimaginable war.

Swaminarayan, untouchability and the 'we are not Hindu' argument

By Rajiv Shah Following my blog on why the Eiffel Tower authorities should take all the blame for giving in to the Swaminarayan sadhus ’ bizarre demand to “invisibilise” women, including its female staff, during their visit to the internationally renowned Paris tourist centre on September 5, an interesting comment by one of the top academics drew my attention to something I vaguely knew about one of India’s most powerful and richest religious sects.

From margins to microphones: The rise of Dalit hip-hop in India

By Tersina Maria Toppo* A protest does not always arrive as a slogan shouted from a street corner. Sometimes, it arrives on a beat. A microphone replaces the megaphone, a music video becomes a public square, and the smartphone becomes the space where a history once pushed to the margins is narrated, debated, and shared.

Counterview

Search This Blog