Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on 19th November 2021 (Friday), declared that the three farm laws which were an area of dispute betwixt the farmers and the Centre for over a year will be revoked.
Farm laws in India revoked
Since September 2020, Indian farmers have been dissenting the farm laws – the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020; the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020; and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020.
Farmers in India believed that these farm laws proved to be beneficial to the private players and unpleasantly wedged their source of revenue. In January 2021, the Supreme Court of India had paused the execution of these farm laws until further orders, to enable a procedure of conciliation betwixt the Centre and the farmers.
As the three farm laws have been endorsed but not executed, the laws will have to be subjected to the annulling procedure in the Indian Parliament and would officially necessitate an agreement from the Indian President, stated Satya Muley, an advocate of the Bombay High Court. Muley stated that the abolishing of law entails a similar procedure to ratifying it under the Constitution of India.
Dissenting farmers who were positioned at the Delhi borders since November 26th 2020, stated that they would continue the remonstration until the farm laws were officially rescinded.
The retraction of the farm laws doesn’t augur well for several agrotechnology players. Director of Krishna Agro & GDCA, Parth Tripathi, stated that according to the new-fangled farm laws, the firm authenticated several MOUs with numerous foreign buyers, who could unswervingly purchase commodities from them. However, with the onset of the current situation, the firm was under the compulsion to sell their processed goods with an old method which will make the goods 20% more expensive to the buyer. There was also a probability that these foreign consumers might have to buy similar agricultural produce from Vietnam, China, and Thailand.
Co-Founder and CEO of agrotechnology start-up InfyU Labs, Amit Srivastva, stated that if the three revoked laws were executed, it could have facilitated new mediums of trading for startups and farmers alike. The farm laws were established to aid a more transparent environment, facilitating enhanced returns directly to the farmers, he said. However, with the current proceedings, InfyU Labs was striving to provide benefits to the farmers by collaborating with the Agricultural Produce & Livestock Market Committee (APMC), he stated.
