Cane farmers plan to hold huge protest soon

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, February 19

Sugarcane farmers are again planning to hold a massive protest as they have not got their dues even after plenty of promises were made by the government.

President of Bhartiya Kisan Union Doaba Manjit Singh Rai said they could not wait anymore and did not trust “fake promises” being made by the government on a daily basis.

For the past two days, farmers have started organising protests at the local level. The protests have been carried out in Gurdaspur and Dhuri.

Satnam Singh Sahni, spokesperson for the Doaba Kisan Sangharsh Committee, said farmers from Phagwara were also going to meet the Kapurthala DC and would hold a protest in front of the Phagwara sugar mills after two days. However, some farmers said if they hold a strike against the mills, the latter would obstruct the procedure of crushing which started in December last year and would continue up to April.

Manjit Rai said in December last year, the government had asked them to end the agitation and they were promised that they would get their dues till January 15.

He said after that the farmers had been meeting officials and leaders but to no avail. He had also approached Cane Commissioner of Punjab and MLA Pargat Singh but nothing had been done till now.

Gurmukh Singh, a farmer from Sahni village, while earlier talking to The Tribune had said he had taken a loan up to Rs 34 lakh just to run his family as he is not able to make both ends meet.

“A sugar mill owes Rs 2 lakh to me. You can well imagine the kind of situation we are going through,” Singh had said. He said his two children were studying.

“If I would not submit the school fees on time, the school authorities would not let my children sit in the class,” Singh said.

Another farmer from Lakhpur village Santokh Singh said he was a marginal farmer with less land and he had yet to get nearly Rs 5 lakh from the mills.

While protesting in December last year against the government, the farmers had said the government did not pay their dues and had failed to give the dues for their sugarcane crops even after a lapse of over a year. It should not keep bragging about the crop diversification scheme in speeches and also it (government) must stop showing ‘fake sympathy’ towards them. The farmers said the agrarian crisis was getting grimmer in the state and the issue was getting worse with every coming day.