Farm laws were brought to benefit one corporate: Jairam Ramesh

NEW DELHI: Congress on Thursday alleged that farm laws, which were withdrawn by the Centre in 2021, were brought in to give benefits to Adani group.

Jairam Ramesh, Congress General Secretary, who has started a series of questions, said "It's related to the hard work the government has put into handing over India's foodgrain logistics to the Adani Group, a conspiracy that it seems was only temporarily foiled by the farmer agitation of 2020-21 that forced you to withdraw the black farm laws."

He said, "one of the biggest beneficiaries of the farm laws would have been Adani Agri Logistics which has become the major beneficiary of the Food Corporation of India's silo contracts, the most recent award being one to set up 3.5 lakh metric tonnes of storage in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar."

He alleged that Adani Farm-Pik was allowed to build a near-monopoly on apple procurement in Himachal Pradesh.

"Is India's public sector, painstakingly built over the past 70 years, now reduced to being a vehicle for the enrichment of your corporate friends," he asked.

He said the Supreme Court observed that the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution had supported the Central warehousing corporation stand while the Ministry of Commerce and Industry had aided Adani's bid to take control of two major CWC warehouses near Mundra port by not supporting the denotification of the warehouses as part of the Adani SEZ.

"The entire country knows that the motivation behind your ill-conceived farm laws was to hand over India's agricultural logistics to a few of your close corporate cronies," Ramesh added.