Besides a legal guarantee for MSP, the farmers are demanding implementation of the Swaminathan Commission’s recommendations, pension for farmers and farm labourers, farm debt waiver, no hike in electricity tariff, among other demands.
Farmers Protest: The Central government, in the next round of talks with farmer leaders, is believed to propose the forming of a committee to work out the Minimum Support Price (MSP) and other demands of the protesting farmers.
According to a media report, the panel will be comprised of government representatives and those representing farmers’ bodies. The specialised panel will work on discussing the finer details of an MSP legislation as well as other issues presented by the farmers, India Today reported.
As per the report, the committee might also ask farmers’ bodies to name their representatives for holding discussions on MSP.
Bring ordinance giving legal guarantee to MSP: Farmer leaders
Earlier today, farmer leader Sarwan Singh Pandher demanded that the Centre should bring an ordinance on giving legal guarantee to MSP. The demand comes a day before the fourth round of talks between farm leaders and Union ministers over their various demands.
Pandher noted that Centre has a right to take “political” decisions and can bring such an ordinance overnight if it so wills.
“If it (Centre) brings an ordinance and it can bring it overnight, if it wants so. If the government wants resolution of farmers’ protest, then it should bring out an ordinance with an immediate effect that it will enact a law on MSP, then discussion can proceed further,” Pandher told reporters at the Shambhu border near Ambala where the farmers are currently camped.
“As far as the issue of modalities is concerned, any ordinance has a six-month validity,” Pandher said.
“As far as the demand for “C2 plus 50 per cent” as per the Swaminathan Commission’s recommendation goes, Pandher said that the government was giving a price according to “A2 plus FL” formula. “Under the same formula, an ordinance can be brought,” he added.
On the issue of farm debt waiver, Pandher said the government is saying that the loan amount has to be assessed. The government can collect data from banks in this regard, he said adding, “It is a question of political will power.”
“They (the Centre) are saying it has to be discussed with the states. You leave aside the states. You talk about the Centre and central banks and then finalise how to waive farmers’ debt,” said Pandher.
The other demands of farmers are also important, he further said.
Farmer leader Jagjit Singh Dallewal also said that the government should bring an ordinance for “giving something to people of the country”.
“The government should bring the ordinance with such an intention that it is implemented with immediate effect and within six months, it can be converted into a law and there is no problem in that,” said Dallewal, who was spearheading the ‘Delhi Chalo’ call along with Pandher.
Delhi Chalo: Day 5
On the fifth day of their “Delhi Chalo” march — called by the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (Non-Political) and the Kisan Mazdoor Morcha — the farmers stayed put at the two border points of Punjab and Haryana as they press the Centre to accept their demands, including a legal guarantee of an MSP for crops.
Besides a legal guarantee for MSP, the farmers are demanding 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.
Union ministers Arjun Munda, Piyush Goyal and Nityanand Rai and farmer leaders will meet on Sunday for the fourth round of talks. The two sides met earlier on February 8, 12 and 15 but those talks remained inconclusive.
(With PTI inputs)