What Piyush Goyal Said After Late-Night Meeting With Protesting Farmers

A panel of Union ministers held a fourth round of talks with farmer leaders here on Sunday over their demands, including a legal guarantee of MSP, as thousands of protesting farmers camped at the Punjab-Haryana border.

Agriculture and Farmer Welfare Minister Arjun Munda, Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal and Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai reached the Mahatma Gandhi State Institute of Public Administration in Sector 26 for the talks.

Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann also joined the meeting, which began at 8.15 pm on Sunday and ended at around 1 am on Monday.

Talking to reporters after the meeting, Mr Goyal said the panel has proposed the buying of pulses, maize, and cotton crops by government agencies at minimum support prices for five years after entering into an agreement with farmers.

The farmer leaders said they will discuss the government’s proposal in their forums over the next two days and thereafter, decide the future course of action.

“Cooperative societies like the NCCF (National Cooperative Consumers Federation) and NAFED (National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India) will enter into a contract with those farmers who grow ‘tur dal’, ‘urad dal’, ‘masoor dal’ or maize for buying their crop at MSP for next five years,” said Mr Goyal.

“There will be no limit on the quantity (purchased) and a portal will be developed for this,” he added.

It will save Punjab’s farming, improve the groundwater table, and save the land from getting barren which is already under stress, Mr Goyal said.

On the Centre’s proposal, farmer leader Sarwan Singh Pandher said, “We will discuss in our forums on February 19-20 and take the opinion of experts regarding it and accordingly take a decision.”

A discussion on loan waivers and other demands is pending and we hope that these will be resolved in the next two days, Mr Pandher said, adding that the ‘Delhi Chalo’ march is currently on hold, but will resume at 11 am on February 21 if all the issues are not resolved.

The Union ministers and farmer leaders had met earlier on February 8, 12 and 15 but the talks remained inconclusive.

Protesting farmers from Punjab have been camping at Shambhu and Khanauri points on the state’s border with Haryana since February 13 when their ‘Delhi Chalo’ march was halted by police.

The call for the march was given by the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (Non-Political) and the Kisan Mazdoor Morcha to press their demands.

Besides a legal guarantee of MSP, the farmers are demanding the implementation of the Swaminathan Commission’s recommendations, pension for farmers and farm labourers, farm debt waiver, no hike in electricity tariff, withdrawal of police cases and “justice” for the victims of the 2021 Lakhimpur Kheri violence, reinstatement of the Land Acquisition Act, 2013, and compensation to the families of the farmers who died during a previous agitation in 2020-21.

Ahead of the fourth round of talks, the SKM announced that it will gherao the residences of BJP leaders in Punjab for three days from Tuesday to press the Centre into accepting their demands.

Balbir Singh Rajewal, a leader of the SKM, an umbrella body of various farmer unions, said they will stage protests in front of the residences of Punjab BJP leaders, including MPs, MLAs and district presidents, from Tuesday to Thursday.

Interacting with reporters after a meeting of SKM leaders in Ludhiana, Mr Rajewal said it has also been decided that they would protest at all toll barriers in the state and make them free for all commuters from February 20 to 22.
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