Farmers Movement Archive

Farmers lay siege to Bathinda DAC over compensation

Bathinda: After a gap of five days, the farmer organisation BKU (Ekta Ugrahan) resumed the protest at Bathinda district administrative complex on Monday, demanding fair compensation for aggrieved farmers whose cotton crop had been damaged in pink bollworm attack. Earlier, the protest, which continued for 15 days outside the residence of Punjab finance minister Manpreet Singh Badal at Badal village, had been lifted on October 19 with call to farmers from five districts of Bathinda, Mansa, Muktsar, Fazilka and Faridkot to assemble at Bathinda on October 25 for indefinite period. A large number of farmers, including women, laid siege to all the four gates of the district administrative complex, not allowing anyone to come out or go inside and declaring that this protest will go parallel to ongoing protests at Tikri border and 40 places across the state, including toll plazas, business establishments of certain corporates and BJP leaders. As the siege continued till evening, the farmers allowed only employees on two-wheelers to go out, but no car was allowed to go out. Farmers warned the employees that they won’t be allowed to go inside on bikes on Tuesday and declared to continue sitting at the gates even in the night. The farm organisation has been demanding Ra 60,000 per acre as compensation while the state government has shown its inability to pay more than Rs 12,000 per acre on the loss found to be over 76%. BKU (Ekta Ugrahan) general secretary Sukhdev Singh Kokri Kalan said the state government is only shedding crocodile tears, claiming it to be sympathisers of the farmers. “But in reality, it is no less than the BJP government at the Centre in dealing with the farmers. We have calculated the costs which farmers have put in for growing cotton and government is not ready to provide the fair compensation even though it agrees with the costs of farmers,” he added. He said the protests will continue till government does not agree to pay fair compensation. The girdawari (revenue assessment) has not been completed yet and it is only after the girdawari that the quantum of loss will be known. The government has asked the district authorities to complete girdawari till October 29. Cotton has been sown in 3.03 lakh hectares in Punjab out of which half is in districts of Bathinda and Mansa where crop has been damaged. “We have also asked the government to investigate the quality of seeds and pesticides as these are suspected to be spurious,” said farm union leader Shingara Singh Mann.

The Times of India

2021-10-26

Chandigarh