Farmers Movement Archive

Protesting farmers refuse to relent, say scrap new laws

Amritsar, October 11Activists of several farm unions are in no mood to relent as is evident from the continuous protests at various places in the district. Their dharna at railway tracks at Devidas Pura village entered 18th day today, while the ones at Butari station and outside the residence of BJP leader Shwait Malik entered 11th day.Union leaders stress that they would accept nothing less than complete withdrawal of the three farm laws enacted by the Union Government. Meanwhile, farmers today staged protests outside a petrol pump and toll plaza near Janidala and Kathunangal.‘Won’t clear rly tracks’They burnt an effigy of the government at Buttari railway station and raised slogans. They reiterated that they would not allow the government to destroy the farming community to benefit corporate houses.Lakhbir Singh Nizampura of vegetable growers association said: “The non-agrarian communities should also join the protest as being consumers of farm products they too would suffer if the corporate houses managed to monopolise the trade.”Satnam Singh Ajnala of Jamhoori Kisan Sabha said: “The protests will continue till our demand is not accepted.” Mandi Board employee resigns in protestTarn Taran: Lakhbir Singh Gill (pic), an employee of the local market committee, on Sunday resigned from his job in protest against the farm Acts passed by the Central Government. Gill, the 54-year-old market committee supervisor, is a first government employee in the state who has left his job in protest against the farm Acts. In his resignation letter to the department, Gill has mentioned that these Acts will not only make farmers landless but also deprive a large number of arhtiyas, palledars and clerks of their jobs. He alleged that thousands of employees working in the Mandi Board would also lose their jobs. Punjab, he says, currently earns around Rs 4,000 crore annually in the form of market fee and rural development fund for providing its yards for selling wheat, paddy, cotton crops in the APMC premises. Such taxes are paid by the buyers, not by the farmers. Gill has extended his support to the agitating farmers.

The Tribune

2020-10-12