SHILLONG, SEPT 14: Days after the Hill Farmers Union (HFU) staged a protest march with pigs over the African Swine Fever (ASF) outbreak in the state, Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma has expressed difficulty in providing compensation to affected farmers and waiving loans availed under the Piggery Mission.
This came when an HFU delegation led by its president Commander Shangpliang met the Chief Minister on Monday after being invited by the Chief Minister’s Office.
Addressing media persons after the meeting, Shangpliang said, “We had taken out a peaceful rally regarding the ASF outbreak. We were invited by the Chief Minister’s Office and we met him today. We discussed four demands – strengthening of checkpoints, setting up of health checkup and quarantine centres, compensation to affected farmers and waiver of loans under the Piggery Mission.”
According to Shangpliang, the Chief Minister was positive on the issue of checkpoints and quarantine facilities.
“The Chief Minister has not given a categorical assurance, but we could sense that he will do the needful for setting up checkpoints, health checkup and quarantine centres,” he said.
However, on compensation and loan waiver, the Chief Minister conveyed that there are difficulties.
“He has shown difficulty in giving compensation and waiving loans. He said he would discuss internally with officers of the department,” Shangpliang said, adding that the Union has insisted that compensation must be paid.
“We told him clearly that compensation should be paid to piggery farmers and we will just not keep quiet if government does not compensate,” he asserted.
The HFU attributed the outbreak to the failure to check import of pigs from outside the state.
“The reason for this outbreak is pigs being brought into the state without proper health checkups. If health checkups were conducted, infected pigs could have been detected and quarantined. At present, due to non-availability of checkpoints for health checkup, police are checking and collecting money while allowing pigs to freely enter without any health checkup,” Shangpliang alleged.
He also said insurance is not a practical solution for ASF.
“Government keeps asking us to do insurance. But whenever pigs are affected and we call doctors, they are not ready to come to the shed for checkup, maybe fearing that humans might also spread the disease. For insurance, we have to take pictures and conduct postmortem to be eligible. If we leave pigs till they die waiting for postmortem, the disease spreads to healthy ones. So we bury pigs even before they die. So where is the question of insurance? That is why we demand compensation and waiver of loans for those who have taken loans under Piggery Mission, because how will they repay when pigs have died,” he explained.
On the agriculture policy, Shangpliang said the Chief Minister informed that the draft has been uploaded on the website for public feedback.
“He said the government has drafted the agriculture policy and has floated it on the website for suggestions from the public, especially the farmers’ community. We will submit our suggestions and request all farmers to go through the draft. The Chief Minister said by October this year, the government should be able to finalise and approve the agriculture policy,” Shangpliang said.
He said the delegation has requested the Chief Minister to invite them again after his internal discussion with the department so that they can provide inputs to prevent such outbreaks in future due to import of livestock without health screening.
