Open Letter to Hon'ble Prime Minister of India to address challenges of common man

Open Letter to Mr. Modi, Hon'ble Prime Minister of India to address Challenges of Food Inflation in Budget

To,

Hon'ble Prime Minister of India

Prime Minister's Office

New Delhi

Happy New year to you and your Cabinet colleagues.

Now onwards, food inflation will be the major challenge for economic recovery of India. When average citizen is already spending more than 60% of income on food, and remain goes for house rent, medical bills, education, local transport, social security. After these basic needs, where is the money in the hands of consumers to purchase non-food items and support economic recovery. Where is the money to pay EMIs for housing, vehicles and other items. People are not enjoying even festivals now a days due to inflation.

Cost of education and healthcare is already becoming illogically high and no attempt is there to control these extortions imposed by essential services providers on citizen unregulated education and healthcare sectors. Sir, Do you have any plans to control these costs as well?

Sir, I have few points for your Consideration means Government of India to improve Agriculture sector in India to control food inflation. Hope you will consider them within your cabinet before rejecting the outright.

Preamble: Why Agriculture will be biggest challenge for Modi government?

1.   Per capita of most food availability is going down.

2.   Food inflation is going up.

3.   Soil health is going down.

4.   Water table is going down.

5.  Productivity of most crops are stagnant, because seed replacement rate is one of the lowest in BRICS nations and major agriculture trading nations.

6.  Food wastage is going up due to lack of warehousing infrastructure.

7.   India has largest number of malnourished people in the world.

8.  India is the largest consumer market for most agriculture commodities but, price discovery mechanism for crops is missing from the marketing system. India industry depends upon international market for price discovery.

9. There is acute shortage of fodder in the country impacting yield per animal.

10. By-product utilization should be encouraged and most of them is burnt in farms leading to pollution and wastage of biomass.

Sir, following points are for your consideration to address the challenges faced by Agriculture in coming months:

a) Agriculture is the state subject and there is no coordination between states about their demand and supply requirements to encourage interstate agriculture trade.

b)  Individuals State agricultures policies are not in line with national objective. These state level policies lack vision and don’t reflect national agenda in their agriculture policy planning. Fragmented approach in agriculture planning leading to poor resource utilization, more wastage and more dependency on imports and unable to manage food inflation.

c)  India is party to Free trade agreement under WTO but there is no free trade agreement between states within India. There are many restrictions while trading within India in agriculture commodities.

d)  Time consuming registration procedures are discouraging investments and innovations within approved policy.

e)  There is no incentives for corporates to promote modern knowledge transfer to farmers in remote areas.

f)  Lack of policy to promote private invest in agriculture education and research is hurting innovation and skill development. There is monopoly of ICAR in agriculture education, research and extension. Why private investment is not encouraged like in IT sector. There should be bidding for research project funds with private sector.

g)  Private investment in agriculture infrastructure will be discouraged the way stock limits are imposed under Essential Commodity Act.

h) Government should come out with agriculture production policy to produce oilseeds and pulses for India in line with coal and petroleum policy where corporates are encouraged to acquire asset for oil and coal outside India.

i)  Railway assets in remote areas should be used to create agriculture related infrastructure to ensure faster and cost effective movement of goods from production to consumption areas with less wastage. Railway can also make more money.

j) Cost effective Post-harvest management should be priority to conserve what is produced. Simple concepts like fumigation and coatings can prevent food losses to great extent. Food processing is not viable in high cost economy with food inflation and control orders under Essential Commodity Act.

k) Agriculture credit and insurance should be linked to soil health of the agriculture farms.

l) Central Crop disease control and management system should be developed in coordination with Indian meteorology and remote sensing stations. Advance warning to farmers can help in better disease management.

m) Mobile money platforms should be encouraged in commodity trading to ensure accountability of transactions and this will prevent black money generation.
n.) Pl. make all water saving technologies used in agriculture tax free. These should be audited and verified by competent institutions before offering tax incentive.

Proper and sensible Agriculture development policies can help in better management. This will address the following issues.

1.    Agriculture Productivity

2.    Farmers’ Income

3.    Risk Management

4.    Capital Formation in rural India

5.    Private investment in agriculture infrastructure sector

6.    Rural Employment generation

7.    Foreign exchange conservation and earning

8.    Food Inflation

9.    Population migration

10.  Prevent Pollution due to burning of biomass

11.  Will address malnourishment status of India

12. Will address climate change challenges

Sir, looking forward for affordable food for common man in India. This was your election promise as well.

with best regards,

Sincerely yours'

Vijay Sardana

Citizen of India