• By Aditya Jha
  • Sat, 19 Oct 2024 11:13 AM (IST)
  • Source:JND

Punjab Farmers Protest: Chief Minister of Punjab Bhagwant Mann has invited protesting farmers for a meeting on Saturday along with commission agents, mandi laborers, and rice millers. The farmers are protesting against the alleged tardy procurement of paddy.

However, farm leaders have confirmed that they will take part in the meeting only if the detained farmers in the protest were released and the charges against them were abrogated. Balbir Singh Rajewal, who heads a faction of the Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU), said, “The CM and government officials knew that we were coming to Chandigarh to protest, but despite that, we were stopped and not given free access to Chandigarh. This shows the ulterior motives on the part of the state government. Now we will meet the CM only when our workers are released.”

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Earlier, farmers protested outside the residence of several legislators and ministers of the Punjab government over their demands. The farmers are demanding that the government should pay the laborers and arthiyas as per the APMC Act of the state government, should start lifting the produce so that the fresh arrivals are facilitated, farmers are given full payment for their crop (MSP of ₹2,320 per quintal), and there must be enough storage capacity for fresh stocks. 

The procurement began in Punjab on October 1 when the state mandi opened board opened 1,832 mandis for receiving grains. Till the last week, 11 lakh metric tons of the crop had arrived in the mandis, while the lifting of the crop was less than 10%. Ravinder Singh Cheema, former president of the Arhtiyas Association, informed that procurement was suffering because the grains were not moved from the mandis. 

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“The entire procurement is suffering because of the lack of lifting of the grain from the mandis as the grain stocks are not being moved from the state,” he said. He further claimed that the farmers will keep protesting until their demands are fulfilled by the state government.