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From India News Network (INN) New Delhi, November 29: The Central Working Committee of the All India Agricultural Workers’ Union (AIAWU), the target organisation of agricultural workers in the country with over 2.5 million members, met at New Delhi on 24,25 November, 2001. They expressed their serious concern over the fact that large areas of the country have been hit by drought and flood, creating havoc among the poorest sections who have not only lost their belongings but are starving as well. It is shocking that the Central Government has not only been slow in promising aid but has actually refused to deliver it to the States despite the vast stock of grain rotting in FCI godowns which it is thinking of dumping as cattle-feed in the USA at Rs.4.30 a Kilo or even destroying, so that the profits of the grain trading lobby that is the backbone of the BJP makes its killing. Moreover the central government has decided to export 80 lakh tonnes food grains with a price tag which is lesser than below poverty line (BPL) issue price of the central government. Through this action they can providing an indirect subsidy to the export lobby and denying all assistances to the vast majority of the poor people in our country. And it has, from the figures of starvation deaths from all over the country, even from areas known for their prosperity, like Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh and Palakkad district of Kerala. This is obviously on account of the hurried opening up of our agricultural market to dumping by the USA and EU countries from 1999 onwards when even the WTO had given India up to 2004 to protect its farmers, leading to thousands of suicides of farmers all over the country on account of the fall in price of all crops and the government’s refusal to procure the produce or prevent dumping of highly subsidised products by multinationals. There is also reason to believe that while the Government is failing to prevent India being used as a dumping ground for untested drugs, banned pesticides and genetically engineered products banned even by the EU as being unfit for human consumption without proper testing. In the face of such callousness, the organised section of agricultural workers will not allow 43crore Indians to face unemployment, ruin, starvation and even death when there is plenty in the country. We have decided to struggle and expose the duplicity of the BJP-led Governments at the Centre and in the States. The Union has decided to launch agitations all over the country to implement the Food for Work programmes with the help of watchdog committees including union representatives. To express their protest the union activists will organise a protest march to the parliament during the coming budget session. On the same day to all over the country, union activists will lead solidarity marches to the FCI godowns and to the Central Government Offices. State level action committees will be formed to organise massive campaigns and propaganda. eom |
