Mukesh Ambani, head of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), said Monday that the company would always support Indian farmers’ demand for a “fair and profitable price on a predictable basis” for its products, and that the company had no plans to enter into partnership by contract. agriculture, now or in the future. The company also said that, through its subsidiary Reliance Jio Infocomm, it had mentioned a petition to the Punjab and Haryana High Court, in which it had requested an urgent government. intervention to stop vandalism of its towers.
“Neither Reliance nor any of our subsidiaries has purchased agricultural land, directly or indirectly, in Punjab / Haryana or anywhere else in India, for the purpose of ‘corporate’ or ‘contract’ farming. We have absolutely no plans to do so, ”the company said in a statement. RIL is one of two companies that farmer groups believe are likely to benefit from the new farm laws. The other company is Adani Group, led by Gautam Adani.
Most of the farmers who have been protesting against the three new farm laws enacted by the central government in September have claimed that the new rules would give large contract farming companies an undue advantage. Farmers have also claimed that large companies such as RIL and the Adani Group had been buying vast tracts of agricultural land in Punjab and Haryana, where they planned to undertake contract farming and establish private mandi, which would undermine government-run mandi.
RIL also tried to dispel this claim, saying that it had not purchased any agricultural land in the two states, nor that the company would ever enter into any “long-term acquisition contracts to gain an unfair advantage over farmers.”
“Reliance and its affiliates fully share and support the aspiration of Indian farmers to obtain a fair and profitable price on a predictable basis for what they produce with exemplary hard work, innovation and dedication … In fact, we will insist that our suppliers strictly comply with the Minimum Sustenance Price (MSP) mechanism and / or any other remunerative price mechanism for agricultural products, as determined and implemented by the government, ”said the company.
In Punjab, where protests began in August before farmers moved to Delhi, the company has seen many of its telecommunications towers vandalized by agitation groups over the past fortnight. As of last Tuesday, as many as 2,000 company cell phone towers had been damaged in one way or another, and many young farmers cut off power to these locations. Although the situation is now under control, the company will have to spend considerable time repairing the towers and the fiber optic cables connecting these towers.
On Monday, the company also reiterated its claim that the vandalism had been instigated and aided by “vested interests” and RIL’s “business rivals”, alluding to Bharti Airtel and Vi. In fact, RIL’s subsidiary, Reliance Jio, had written to the Defense Department that both companies had been engaging in a “malicious” disinformation campaign against Jio.
“These acts of violence have endangered the lives of thousands of its employees and caused damage and disruption to vital communications infrastructure, points of sale and services run by its subsidiaries in the two states,” the company said in its release. Both Bharti Airtel and Vi have refuted the claims, calling the accusations “unfounded.”
“In fact, we are amused how Jio can even believe that Airtel would be so omnipotent as to force customers to leave Jio. If we had this power, we would have exercised it for the last three years when Jio accumulated a large number of clients, ”Bharti Airtel had said in his letter.
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