 In fact, I want to place on record my appreciation and thanks to NewsClick. It was NewsClick which published my interview, which was a critic of the FRDA bill when no media was talking about it, no TV channels were talking about it, nobody was taking it so seriously. But when the bill was at the draft stage itself, I had gone through the draft and I happened to be in the studio to give an interview. That was seen by quite a lot of audience and they also copied it and started circulating it in. So that way the public got the idea what are the defects of this FRDA bill. The initial interview of NewsClick helped us as well as the public to know what is there in the bill. Subsequently, many major TV channels covered it up. I had been also participating in the debate in various channels and then we approached the political parties. I had a 35 minute audience with Mr. Rahul Gandhi. He gave a patient hearing. He discussed about demonetization. He discussed about the FRDA bill, what is there in the bill, what is to be opposed, why you are opposed to the bill and what support you need as an organization. And I requested that as a party which brought in the nationalization should fight to safeguard the public sector branch because this bill is only a indirect way of privatization. Now when you want to privatize a public sector bank, you have to go to the parliament. There is a rule that below 51% government cannot reduce their shareholding. But if the FRDA bill is fast, they don't have to go to the parliament. The so-called resolution authority can decide to merge banks, to privatize banks, to liquidate banks. All that provisions have been created and I also explained about how that bail-in class has been brought in, where in case of a crisis of a bank, the depositors money can be appropriated by the resolution authority, which had already happened in Cyprus after a similar bill was passed, where the customers got back only 60% and 40% of the deposit in case of two different banks. Then he assured me that yes, we will oppose it in the parliament at the introduction stage itself. They opposed. We expected that it will go to the parliament standing committee. In fact, he had asked me to meet Mr. Veeraf Amuly, who is the chairman of the parliament standing committee on finance. But the government cleverly sent it to a joint parliamentary committee of which they had appointed one Mr. Bhuvendra Yadav, who belongs to the ruling party as the chairman. That committee had majority members from the NDA. I tried for an appointment with him, which he refused. He had in fact made a statement to a friend of mine that there is no use in making, meeting because we have decided that we will pass the bill. So what's the use of your person coming and explaining to me? I don't want to waste my time. This was the reply he had given. But then I kept on writing to the joint parliamentary committee that we want to appear before the parliament committee. That they did not do. And then finally I had to write to the speaker of the Lok Sabha, deputy chairman of the Rajesh Sabha, saying that we are the major stakeholders. I am representing 320,000 offices in the banking industry. And we belong to the public sector banks where even now 75% of the deposits and advances in this country are handled by the public sector bank. So we have to be given an audience. And finally I was asked to appear and I appeared before the joint parliamentary committee and made a 35 minutes for our fine presentation. They asked certain queries, whatever queries they raised, they said that you should give a written reply also in addition to oral reply. We submitted, they wanted it again to be translated in Hindi, we translated in Hindi and gave. And in fact I remember when I appeared in the JPC, Mr. Saukatha Rai, a member of parliament from Tarnamal Congress, he said that he has made a very clear presentation. He has explained it better than a Supreme Court lawyer, why this bill has to be rejected. So there is nothing to discuss, let us reject the bill. But the committee did not decide on that at that time. So we kept on putting pressure. More people like NAPM, National Alliance for People's Movement, they appeared before the joint parliamentary committee, Center for Financial Accountability appeared. So we had discussions among ourselves and different points we could bring in to the JPC. But still JPC did not, they deferred one. They kept on deferring the dates for submission of the report and we had been talking to members of parliament directly who are in the JPC. We had also sent a detailed representation to every member of parliament, both Rajesh Sabha and Lok Sabha. All members. Yes. Actually other political parties, Congress was one, CPM, Comrade Sitaram Yachuri, the moment we told about it is that you know our party stand, we will always support public sector. Sharath Yadav, I even met Mr. Naveen Patanayi, Chief Minister of Odisha. He said that okay, I will ask my people to oppose the bill, their party also has representation in the JPC. I met one member of parliament from AADMK who is also in the JPC, Mr. Karnagaran who represents CPM and the joint parliamentary committee. So they all assured that at least we will give a decent note. They also did not even expect that this bill will be withdrawn. But it is the media which helped. The public's anchor after sometime starting with news click, various channels and news papers started highlighting the defects of this bill. So what happened? We started a signature campaign, massive signature campaign in the streets of Kolkata and other places. So people started understanding that yes, there is something danger and especially that valine class and in fact the Prime Minister of the country went on air and said that some bank unions are spreading a rumor that there is going to be liquidation of banks. I will never allow any liquidation of banks to take place because that freshness started mounting because of this reaction of the public. People started withdrawing money, NRA started withdrawing money. They didn't know, it was so sad, they don't understand fully. One customer comes to me saying that, sir, I have kept my deposit, few lakhs, sir only saving I have, they are saying that this is dangerous. So let me withdraw from this bank and bring to your bank thinking that okay that bank can go bankrupt, this bank will not. But the act that will if it is fast, it has provision for every kind of bank, public sector bank, private sector bank, cooperative bank, RRP, non-banking financial companies, anything can be liquidated. So that fear which came in the mind of the people forced the government that yes, we have to withdraw the bill. So finally now they have withdrawn it from the parliament. But if acting finance minister has made a statement that that bill is needed, we might bring it up in some different form after some time. So we have to be on guard to see that the larger majority of customers who are ordinary citizens who have deposited the money with the hope that anytime I want I can get it back. That faith should not be destroyed. So we have to be on guard to see that some other bill in some other form does not come. So in the last few I would like to talk about the farmers agitation and the debt loan waiver that is going on and you attended the meeting so if you can tell us about. I am very happy that for the first time in history of this country to support the farmers, the trade unions, civil society organizations, middle class movements have come together. Today we had a meeting at Delhi which is a preparatory meeting to support these farmers who are going to come to Delhi by the 28th to 30th. Training is the most important activity in this country. Without food we cannot live. Farmers are committing suicide and these farmers who are feeding the 128 crore population of this country, we have given scanned regard for them. The policies over a period of time has not supported the farmers. The farm crisis is something which has led to a situation that today no youth will like to get into farming. He always tries to get into something else because farming is not seen as something which can feed him with adequate income. It is not a dignified job exactly. Although the farmer's agitation is very good, 201 organizations for the first time have come together. This is something unique. Earlier they were all fighting alone. Now the understanding has come among the people that standing alone we cannot win so we have to come together and now to support them the others are coming together. That is another positive development. I would like to call it 92% versus 8%. As per the 2011 socioeconomic census, 92% of the population in this country, the head of the household's income is less than 10,000 rupees. So only the 8% has more than that. Fortunately I belong to that 8% but this 92% has to understand what is happening in the country. The policies how it is affecting. So in this particular case of farm crisis, there are two demands. One they are saying that wherever there is a farm crisis there should be a debt waiver, waiver of the loans. They are not asking to write off all the loans. There are criteria. Wherever there is a crisis, that crisis has to be analyzed and that should be done. There what I had been talking about for quite some time is that when you go for a debt waiver, normally what happens is that only the debt given by the cooperative banks and nationalized banks is written off. Even in that case sometimes the primary agriculture cooperative societies are left out. State cooperative banks are sometimes left out. There are data which shows that only hardly 15% of the small and marginal farmers have access to credit in this banking system. Now out of that, quite a number of them would have repaid the loan because the banks go and threaten them. Today Mr. Sainath was saying that at Marathwada after the demonetization, suddenly farmers were sent a notice that their loan has been converted from a cash credit loan, agriculture cash credit to a term loan. So a 1.5 lakh loan outstanding became suddenly 10 lakh or total lakh outstanding. The interest rate got changed, cumulative interest was charged and when they were not repaying, the banks said that we will do a Gandhigiri. We will come with the staff and stand in front of your house and name and shame you. So these are the type of efforts which was supported by some of the state governments. So what is needed is that when there is a crisis, as I told in a different thing, when you could write crores and crores of money for corporates, what is wrong in writing off when a farmer is in crisis? In most of the cases when I have discussed with farmers in their villages, they say that we do not even want write off, we want refacing of the loan and we want a fresh credit. What happens is that the moment the bank identifies your account as NPA, one it is forcing you to repay the loan, second it stops additional credit. Now you are already under the crisis, your crop was failed, so you require money to buy seeds, you require money for plowing, you require money for putting fertilizers. So what alternative you have? You go to money lender, borrow at a huge rate of interest. So the borrower gets into a debt trap. So what we suggest is that one, a borrower, an agricultural service to farmer who has repaid the loan, also should be written off their loan because it is because of this pressure, he might have sold some of his assets, he might have told his, sold his livestock to repay this loan, so he should also be encouraged. Then that tendency to default will not happen. He will honestly try and repay in future also. Apart from that, Kerala government has done once that even the money taken from the money lenders, that also is covered under the debt relief. You may be an agricultural laborer, you might have borrowed from a money lender for wearing a cow or goat, milk animals, livestock, for which you have taken that loan, even that is covered under a debt relief scheme. So that is what is needed. When you give debt relief, you cover all the people who are affected. That has not happened. Then is the implementation of the minimum support price. Today Mr. Hanan Milla from the All India Kisan Sabha was talking in the meeting. He says that the Prime Minister himself is uttering a big lie, that he is saying that I have provided minimum support price, which is not true. The M. S. Swaminathan Committee report, it specifically says on what grounds you calculate that 150% of the input cost. But they have not taken all that into account and they are just announcing a revised minimum support price and they are saying that we have achieved that, which is not true. So the farmer requires assistance in selling his product. Many times, even when there is a minimum support price, there is no buying. The government is not buying. So what is alternative? He goes at a cheaper rate to the shopkeeper. So what the farmers are demanding is that you take into account the cost of cultivation. The costs are rent for the land. That is the recommendation of the Swaminathan Committee also. And your labor cost. Many times the farmer is family contributes for the cultivation and allied agriculture activity. That is not considered as a labor in the present calculation by the government. If these three things are taken into account and 150% of that cost is fixed as minimum support price and the government also ensures that that procurement takes place, then the farmers will be saved. And that way the farm crisis can come to an end. And the government also support. Nowadays there is hardly any expenditure on irrigation. So the government has to provide the infrastructure for agriculture. It should also support the farmer through the credit policies, especially the present credit policies are not oriented towards the small farmer and marginal farmer. Everything is covered as allied agriculture activity. Earlier there was a norm that certain credit should go to direct agriculture. Now that has been diluted. To bank as per the norms 40% of the credit has to go for priority sector. Out of that 18% has to go to agriculture sector. Now you have combined agriculture and allied agriculture. So somebody is having a mango orchard like Ambani. That is also an allied agriculture. Ambani may be starting a lens fresh store. That may be also covered under allied agriculture activity. And you are raring some cows that is also allied agriculture activity. So the real forming activity for the small farmer, that has to be once again changed in the policy. That certain percentage should go to the small farmer and marginal farmer for direct agriculture. That is one thing. Ambani now they have expanded the norms in such a way that even the bigger farmers, they get all that lower interest rate. So that again has to be re-looked. This country, the majority of the farmers are small and marginal farmers with small land holding. Then there is a huge number of farmers who are tenant farmers who do not have any tenancy right. There are very few states where you have tenancy right, which was there in West Bengal. Now I don't know whether they still have. But all the other states, nobody will give you an agreement that I have given your land for two years for cultivation, because they think that after some time this fellow will not move away, so the land will go. State governments are also not supporting that. So the tenant farmers, how they will get access to credit. That has to be again brought in in the policy. See now there are, the award is promoting joint liability groups. They are saying that through that group you can take. And in my experience, wherever I have come across this joint liability groups, I find that it is only the rich farmers. Small farmers have not been able to organize themselves into this joint liability groups and take loans. Similarly, there are farmers clubs. Again the richer farmers are coming and dominating. Again there are SHGs to which, self-help groups to which form credit can be given. That has comparatively reduced. Banks have been giving more loans to microfinance institutions instead of giving direct loans. Even in the Mudra loans where agriculture also can be given. Non-banking financial companies are charging 14 percent, 15 percent interest rate. So the real farmer, who is a small or marginal farmer, has not been given adequate credit. And if there are adequate data available with RBI to show that the small credit as a whole has drastically gone down. And the large credit, corporate credit has drastically gone up. So unless the government comes up with a policy of changing the norms, that these are the directives. In a country which is a developing country, where still there is absolute poverty, there has to be directed credit. Unfortunately, organizations like RBI, Nithya Yoke, they have started talking about why should there should be directed credit. Banking is a profitable venture, so you have to give credit only looking at your profitability. These things, that mindset has to change. Unless you help the majority of the farmers and make agriculture lucrative, the future of the country will be in danger. It is not that we start looking at some statistics. America, only 2 percent of the GDP comes from agriculture. So we should go, we are not that type of a country. But the western model of development is a failed model. So this country, even today, majority of the people are dependent on farming. Farming may not be contributing so much to the GDP because of various other reasons. Because you have increased the services sector, you have increased some of the industries. Because of that there is a change. Farming has to be brought into focus and this farmer's agitation is going to create a history is my feeling. For the first time, all farmers are coming together, non-farm workers, middle class, civil society organizations, they are coming in support of them. And there is going to be a huge agitation. Delhi is going to, I am told that the Delhi government has agreed to provide adequate support of infrastructure, providing toilets, providing food and water and all. So this is going to be a real historic moment which is going to take place in the country and that should pay way for bringing in the 92 percent together.