symbolic photo
Farmers protesting against the slow pace of rice procurement in Punjab decided to lift the blockade of the national highway at four places in the state on Sunday afternoon. However, they will continue their protest on the roadside. Farmers, under the banner “Kisan Mazdoor Morcha”, blocked roads indefinitely in some places in the state on Saturday. They are protesting over other issues, including the slow pace of rice procurement and uprising.
On Sunday, there was a two-and-a-half-hour meeting of farmers’ representatives with two Punjab ministers, after which the agitated farmers announced the withdrawal of chakka jam. The meeting was attended by Punjab Food and Civil Supplies Minister Lal Chand Kataruchak and Agriculture Minister Gurmeet Singh Khudian, leaders of farmer organizations including Kisan Mazdoor Morcha’s Sarwan Singh Pandher, Manjit Singh Rai and Satnam Singh Sahni of Bharatiya Kisan Union (D), and ADGP. (Act (Agreement) SPS Parmar, DIG (Border Range) Satinder Singh and other officers participated.
The protest continues until the strategy is announced.
Farmers said protests were held at Badrukhan on Sangrur-Bathinda highway in Sangrur, Dagru on Moga-Firozpur highway in Moga, Satiyali Phul on Gurdaspur-Tanda highway in Gurdaspur and Batala railway station. In Phagwara, farmers have been protesting on the Amritsar-Delhi national highway for the past few days. Pandher announced at a press conference after the meeting that the lockdown would be lifted with immediate effect on Sunday afternoon, but that the protest would continue until the next strategy was announced. He said protesters would sit on the side of the road and not disrupt traffic.
Announcement of not harvesting rice until demands are met
Pandher also said that the Punjab government has assured him that the rice lifting process will be expedited. Rice mill owners in Punjab have announced that they will not thresh rice until their demands are met, due to which the extraction of rice from the mandis has been affected. Pandher said the government has said that the problems with rice mill owners have been resolved. He said the state government has also ensured compensation to farmers for rice purchased below the Minimum Support Price (MSP) in recent times. Minister Kataruchak said farmers told him that MSP norms were violated in the early days of rice procurement. (Language)
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