Punjab Govt has accepted most demands: Farmers
The Punjab Government has agreed to send its 1,600 page Draft Agriculture Policy — after fine-tuning it — to the leaders of Bhartiya Kisan Union (Ekta Ugrahan) and Punjab Khet Mazdoor Union by September 30.
The state government has also agreed to bring in a one-time settlement (OTS) policy for loans taken by farmers from Cooperative Bank, claim farmer leaders.
The government has also agreed to get a survey done on suicides by farmers and farm labourers in the state after 2010 because of indebtedness and compensate their families.
The unions’ demand for ensuring that all factories located near the Buddha Nullah in Ludhiana discharged only treated water to prevent its further degradation has also been accepted by the government.
A government delegation led by Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann made these offers to 10 leaders of the two unions during their marathon talks.
The talks remained inconclusive for the first three hours, after which the CM reportedly left the meeting. Following this, his Cabinet colleagues — Agriculture Minister Gurmeet Singh Khudian, Finance Minister Harpal Cheema and Power Minister Harbhajan Singh ETO — and a team of police and civil administration resumed the negotiations.
Cheema later told The Tribune that the state government has offered to allow the union leaders to examine their draft policy. Their suggestions would be sought before implementing a comprehensive policy, he said.
Ultimately, it was decided that the 800-odd farmers owing allegiance to the two unions, who have been staging a dharna in the state capital here since Sunday, will hold a meeting at the Dasehra Grounds in Sector 34 on Friday morning, review the government offer and decide on their future course of action.
Initially, a day before the dharna started, BKU (Ekta Ugrahan) president Joginder Singh Ugrahan had said that their protest centred around their demand that the government immediately implemented the new agriculture policy. For the protest, the union was allotted a site in Sector 34 by the Chandigarh Administration till September 5.
After today’s meeting, which lasted over four hours, Ugrahan said that they have succeeded in pushing the government to accept their demands, including compensation for crop loss because of the vagaries of weather. “We will announce our future course of action tomorrow,” he said.
Lachman Singh Sewewal, general secretary of Punjab Khet Mazdoor Union, said the government has also agreed to consider their demand that plots be given to farm labourers within three months to construct houses.
Will bail them out
Every effort will be made to bail out the farmers of the state from the ongoing agrarian crisis. The state government is solidly with the food growers of the state who, through hard work, have made the country self-reliant in food production. — Bhagwant Mann, Chief Minister
