Ahead of the Center’s seventh round of meetings with farmers protesting the three farm laws on Monday, the Union for Agriculture Minister of State (MoS) Kailash Choudhary said Saturday that a solution would emerge during the talks and that the ongoing commotion would end. Choudhary said the laws, which were passed in September last year, are for farmers, who have been protesting the reforms for more than a month by camping at various border points near Delhi and surrounding areas.
“I am sure that in the next round of talks with farmers a solution will be reached and the ongoing protest will come to an end. The three agrarian bills are in favor of the farmers. They used to demand to get rid of the middlemen and sell their products at the rate of their choice, ”the minister said according to the ANI news agency.
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Choudhary also spoke on the issue of contract farming in agricultural reforms. “In the new bill, there cannot be an investigation against a farmer even if he is at fault. It also states that there will be no agreement on the farmer’s land. The bill is favorable to farmers and the prime minister wants them to become ‘atmanirbhar’, ”he said.
The first five rounds of talks between protesters and the government yielded no solutions. On December 30, the farmers’ unions decided to meet with the ministers for the sixth time. However, the government only agreed to address two of the four issues raised by farmers, saving heavy penalties for stubble burning and continuing the current mechanism of granting subsidized energy for agricultural use. So far, there has not been a final call on whether the reforms should be scrapped.
Union agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar also said on Friday that the government expected a positive outcome during the January 4 (Monday) meeting, but withheld a prediction as to whether it would be the final round of talks with protesters. “I can’t say for sure now. I am not an astrologer. I am hopeful that any decision made (at the meeting) will be of interest to the country and the farmers, ”Tomar had said.
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On the other hand, representatives of the peasant unions warned that they would intensify their agitation and take it to all corners of the country if the Center does not solve its main problems of repealing the reforms and providing a legal guarantee for Minimum Support. Price (MSP) during interaction. “If the January 4 meeting with the government fails to end the stalemate, we will announce the dates to close all shopping malls and gas pumps in Haryana,” said a farmer leader.
Unions further warned of a January 6 tractor march from the protest site to the Kundli-Manesar-Palwal (KMP) highway and protesting farmers in Shahjahanpur on the Haryana-Rajasthan border will be told to move towards the national capital.
(With contributions from the agency)
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