On the 4th of January, the Central Government and 40 farmer’s unions are scheduled to conduct another round of talks.
The meeting is scheduled to discuss the ongoing protest over three farm bills.
The agitation against the three laws started in September, after the Central Government proposed the laws in the Parliament.
The Parliament passed the three laws – The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020, the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020 and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act 2020 – amid large scale protests from the Opposition and farmer unions.
According to the passed bills, the Minimum Support Price (MSP,) area of trading would be under the purview of the Indian Government.
The reason behind the farmers protest is their fear of being at the mercy of corporates or zamindars for crop prices. The new bills would also demolish the Minimum Support Price (MSP) advantages for farmers.
The 4th of January’s meeting would comprise Union ministers Narendra Singh Tomar, the Agriculture Minister of India, Union Railways Minister Piyush Goyal, Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and 40 farmer unions.
Today’s talks would be the 7th round of talks and is likely to be fruitful. Union ministers express hope that today’s meeting would bring the solution to the ongoing protest.
Union Minister of State for Agriculture Kailash Choudhary said a solution would be found out in the talks and agitation against three agriculture laws may end as well.
The last 6 rounds of talks failed as the protesting farmers denied to accept amendments proposed by the Government of India (GoI.)
During the sixth round of talks on the 30th of December, a consensus was reached on two of the four issues between protesting farmers and the Central government. The consensus was reached on stubble burning and safeguarding power subsidies. However, the deadlock continued over the two main demands, legal assurance on Minimum Support Price (MSP) and complete rollback of the three farm laws.
Besides protesting at Delhi’s Singhu border, farmers are protesting in Ghaziabad, Haryana and Punjab.
Meanwhile farmers who entered 39th day of protest, starting from the 25th of December are taking refuge in tents.
They continued their demand of repealing of the three farm laws. One of the protesting farmers said, “We will only relent after the govt accepts the demand of rescinding the black farm laws.”
On the 2nd of January, the Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM,) a joint front of almost 40 farmer organisations threatened to march into Delhi Parade for the 26th of January.
The union said with their tractors, trolleys and other vehicles they would march into the event if their demands are not met. In addition, a “farmers’ republic parade” will take place after the official parade.
According to sources, on the 6th of January, the farmers would be doing rehearsal for Kisan Republic Parade, on the 13th of January, farmers would burn the copies of three farm laws on Lohri, on the 18th of January, the Mahila Kisan Diwas, women farmers who are protesting would take a lead and on the 26th of January, they would conduct parallel Kisan Republic Parade.
The scheduled meeting of today is scheduled to be held at 2:00 P.M.
Stay tuned for further updates.
