Farmers Movement Archive

Sold land to pay back my loan: Farmer

Tribune News ServiceAmritsar, September 27I have sold off 3 acres to pay back a loan of Rs14 lakh, said crestfallen Avtar Singh, who was among the farmers squatting on railway tracks to protest against the farm Bills passed in Parliament.He said all calculations to pay back loan by selling the next crop fall flat as there remains a wide gap between the quoted procurement price and the actual price in the market. Expenditures were increasing but the income had been standstill, he said.The protest called by the Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee (KMSC) on the Amritsar-Delhi railway line at Devidyal Pura village, situated on the outskirts of the city, entered its fourth day on Sunday.His is not a case in isolation. There are many farmers who were facing heat due to reducing income and the rising tilling cost. Narrating their plight, farmers who are under debt said the three farm laws should be revoked.Wearing kesari ‘chunnis’, women protesters, too, joined the railway blockade. On the birth anniversary of Shaheed Bhagat Singh on Monday, youth from the farming community would also join the protest.The KMSC on Monday would hold a meeting at the protest site to chalk out the next course of action. Even as some farmer organisations are lifting their agitations in various parts of the state, the KSMC wants to continue the stir until it reaches a logical conclusion.Protesting farmers raised slogans against the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and lambasted his ‘anti-farmer’ and ‘pro-corporate’ policies.Sarwan Singh Pandher, general secretary of the KMSC, said the Prime Minister continued to flay the Opposition for misguiding farmers on the agriculture laws. It showed Modi thinks farmers were still dependent on political parties to form an opinion on the Bills passed in Parliament, he said.Meanwhile, Giani Harnam Singh Khalsa, the head of Damdami Taksal, has asked Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh to convene an all-party meeting to turn the farm Bills recently passed by Parliament ineffective in the state.Women protesters burn Centre’s effigy in Tarn TaranTarn Taran: On the fourth day of the ‘rail roko’ agitation against the farm Bills, women activists of the Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee, Punjab, on Sunday blocked the national highway at Piddi village. The women protesters took out a rally and burnt an effigy of the Union Government. Devinder Kaur, Sukhwant Kaur and Joginder Kaur were among the prominent speakers who addressed on the occasion. They said the government that they would not allow implementation of the farm Bills in the same form, which are against the interest of the farmers and people of the Punjab.The protesters organised a rally near the site of the ‘pakka morcha’ and blocked trains. — OC

The Tribune

2020-09-28