Friday, July 30, 2010

As everyone knows Congress hearts bleed for the aam aadmi especially at taxpayers' expense. To win last year's elections the previous Congress led government forgave loans given by banks to farmers. The present finance minister is encouraging banks to increase lending to farmers and charge lower interest rates at 5%. In 2009-10 banks have lent a whopping Rs. 3.67 trillion to farmers as agricultural loans. We wait to see if farmers accumulate huge loans and then wait for the next elections to be forgiven once more. To give more taxpayer money to farmers the government has a minimum support price at which it buys wheat from farmers which results in high food prices for everyone. So to help the poor, because their hearts are still bleeding, the government distributes cheap grains to the poor under the Public Distribution System. Which means vast quantities of grains are stolen to be sold in the open market and 90% of kerosene is stolen to adulterate diesel. Of course there is not enough storage space for all the wheat collected so 61000 tonnes of wheat had rotted in granaries. 136000 tonnes from 2008-9 and 2738 thousand tonnes collected in 2009-10 have already been stored for over one year, the maximum period allowed for such storage. Millions of tonnes of wheat are lying in the open in Punjab and Haryana under tarpaulins. With monsoon rains having started in earnest most of this will probably rot as well. Meanwhile this Congress led government is increasing taxes on everything imaginable. Criminal politicians are the biggest enemies faced by Indians. We desperately need Citizens Corporations to protect us.

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