UPSC Articles
Protests Against Farm Ordinances
Part of: GS Prelims and GS-II- Centre-state Relations; Policies and interventions
In news
- Recently, the Punjab Assembly passed a resolution and rejected the Centre’s recent farm ordinances and the proposed Electricity (Amendment) Bill 2020.
Key takeaways
The ordinances include:
- Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Ordinance, 2020
- Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Ordinance, 2020
- Essential Commodities (Amendment) Ordinance, 2020.
- These ordinances are expected to allow free movement of agricultural produce between states and let the farmers decide to whom they want to sell their crops.
- The Electricity (Amendment) Bill 2020 centralizes the power sector through establishment of Electricity Contract Enforcement Authority.
- Recognition of franchisees and sub- licensees under the Bill might open the sector to private players.
Punjab’s Stand:
- Entry 14 of List II of the Constitution comprises agriculture as the subject of the states.
- Therefore, the three ordinances passed by the Centre are against the Constitution of India.
- These ordinances are a direct encroachment upon the functions of the states and against the spirit of cooperative federalism enshrined in the Constitution.
Important value additions
- Article 246 adopts a threefold distribution of legislative power between the Union and the states.
- The subject-wise distribution of this power is given in the three lists of the Seventh Schedule of the constitution:
- List-I- the Union List
- List-II- the State List
- List-III- the Concurrent List
