Ever since the budget is out, so is the criticism of the loan write off of farmers by opposition. Congress has made policies that benefit the big companies; then it has taxed these same companies to run welfare programmes like Employment Guarantee. For example, the Congress has allowed import of cheap palm oil from Malaysia. This has led to decline in prices of oilseeds produced by our farmers and to increase in their poverty and indebtedness. Congress has supported entry of big companies in retail trade leading to loss of livelihood of street-corner shops. Reservation for small businesses is being removed. These economic policies clearly benefit big companies. Huge increase in corporate income tax in the last four years of Congress rule is proof of their increasing profits. These tax revenues are being used to run Employment Guarantee and other welfare programmes.

Poverty of Indian farmers will surely increase due to import of cheap palm oil. The poverty so created will be partly removed through write-off of loans. Yet, this policy will be inadequate. The efforts at poverty alleviation are insufficient and should be deepened. Loans of large farmers should also be written off. Alternative criticism is that policies that lead to increase in poverty, such as cheap imports of palm oil, should be ended. This will spontaneously lead to increased incomes for our farmers and there will remain no need to write-off loans or run Employment Guarantee and other welfare programmes.

The opposition has mainly criticized the budget for making inadequate efforts to alleviate poverty. BSP has demanded that loans of farmers having more than to hectare land should also be written-off; non-agricultural loans taken by poor from various development corporations should be written-off; Public Distribution System should be expanded; subsidies on fertilizers, seeds and insecticides should be increased; and 365 days employment should be provided under the Guarantee Programme. It would be clear that these demands would still lead to generation of poverty due to import of cheap palm oil-only the pain would be more lessened than under the present dispensation. Former Finance Minister and BJP leader Yashwant Sinha has demanded that loans taken by farmers from village moneylenders should also be written-off because two-thirds loans taken by farmers fall in this category. Increased production can come along with low prices. The production of grains in the country has vastly increased in the last thirty years but so have the number of suicides by farmers.

However, this does not solve the problem of poverty one bit. Lower prices of food grains provide relief to the poorest laborers but hit at the income of farmers. The demand for control of prices only means that fanners will be more impoverished. The need was to identify economic policies that lead to generation of poverty. Restrictions should be imposed on imports of cheap palm oil and other goods that are produced by the poor. Taxes must be imposed on big companies and technologies that eat jobs of the poor. It is unfortunate that both main opposition parties are not raising questions about the economic model being implemented by the Congress, which is leading to generation of poverty. They are only demanding more efforts at its alleviation-while leaving the monster that generates poverty intact. It is not poverty but all in the game of politics.