A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the government is ready to hold talks on “issues, logic and facts” with farmers protesting against the new farm laws, farmers’ unions announced the resumption of talks on 29 from December.
Following deliberations on the government’s offer for the talks, farmers’ unions, under the banner of Sanyukt Kisan Morcha, told the press at the Singhu border on Saturday (the protest at the gates of Delhi is now a month old) that talks with the government will take place at 11 am. Tuesday.
According to the unions, the meeting’s agenda will be: the modalities to be adopted to repeal the three central agrarian laws; the mechanisms that will be adopted to make remunerative PEM, recommended by the National Farmers Commission, a legally guaranteed right for all farmers and all agricultural products; amendments to be made and notified in the ‘Ordinance of the Commission for the Management of Air Quality in the National Capital Region and Contiguous Areas, 2020’ to exclude farmers from the criminal provisions of the ordinance; and changes to be made to the 2020 Electricity Bill (Amendment) to protect the interests of farmers.
The unions warned they will intensify their agitation by increasing roadblocks in Delhi NCR if the talks do not lead to a tangible solution.
An estimated 30,000 people, affiliated with the BKU (Ugrahan) and the Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee (KMSC), are heading to Delhi from Barnala, Ludhiana, Sangrur, Patiala and Gurdaspur.
Sukhdev Singh Kokrikalan, general secretary of BKU (Ugrahan), said that more than 3,000 vehicles, transporting nearly 16,000 farmers from more than 100 villages in Punjab, entered Narwana at noon on Saturday. He said the convoy was enthusiastically received by farmers in Haryana and stopped at Jhanjh Kalan village. They will head towards Tikri on Sunday.
Kulwant Sharma, BKU (Ugrahan) bloc chairman, said another group of 15,000 volunteers will enter Haryana via the Bathinda-Dabwali road and hold a demonstration with Haryana farmers in Fatehabad before heading to Tikri on Monday.
Swaraj India President Yogendra Yadav, speaking on behalf of the farmers’ unions, said: “We want to make one thing very clear. We are not going to discuss whether the government should withdraw these laws or not. We will now discuss how they should be withdrawn. The government should discuss the procedure involved in repealing a law. This is the only direction in which the talks will be headed. “
Peasant leaders criticized the prime minister’s speech on Friday. Citing “misinformation”, Rashtriya Kisan Mazdoor Mahasangh Chairman Shiv Kumar Kakka said the prime minister should “create an environment conducive to talks.”
On December 24, in a letter addressed to 40 representatives of farmers ‘unions, Vivek Aggarwal, deputy secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, urged them to decide the date and time of the next round of talks and also to “give details of other issues on which he wants to negotiate ”.
Writing to the Ministry a day earlier, the farmers’ unions had said that, apart from the three central laws, “their ‘proposal’ on Minimum Support Prices did not have anything clear or concrete that warranted a response from us. With respect to minimum support prices, he proposed a “written guarantee” regarding the continuation of the current procurement system. However, farmers’ organizations require a legal guarantee that all agricultural products will be purchased only in MSP or higher, and also in an MSP set with formula C2 + 50% as recommended by the National Farmers Commission ”.
The Farm Costs and Prices Commission projects three types of production costs – A2, A2 + FL and C2 – for each crop, both statewide and average across India.
A2 covers all out-of-pocket costs incurred directly by the farmer – in cash and in kind – on seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, hired labor, leased land, fuel, irrigation, etc.
A2 + FL includes A2 plus an imputed value of unpaid family work.
C2 is a more comprehensive cost that takes into account rent and forgiven interest on own land and fixed capital assets, in addition to A2 + FL.
Referring to the union demand related to the MSP, Aggarwal wrote: “The three laws related to the agricultural reforms have no relation to the procurement based on the minimum support price nor do they have any effect on the procurement system based on the MSP that already exists before the promulgation of these three laws ”.
“This was mentioned in all rounds of talks. It was also clarified that the government is willing to give a written guarantee regarding the continuation of the current MSP-based procurement system, ”he said in the letter.
“It does not seem logical to raise any new demand on this issue, which is withdrawn from the new agrarian laws. But as previously stated, the government is ready to discuss all the issues that you raised, ”said Aggarwal.
.
