Farm laws: Telco launches drive against ‘misinfo’

GS Paul
Tribune News Service
Amritsar, January 8

A leading private telecom operator, which has been targeted in various parts of the state for the past few days as a protest against farm laws, has now initiated an on-ground campaign to clarify its stance to the farmers and consumers. The perception that the group will be one of the beneficiaries of the new farm laws has led to vandalism of its mobile towers, DG (digital generating) units and stealing of batteries.

The group has moved Punjab and Haryana High Court and the hearing of its petition against vandalism has been scheduled for February 8.

In the meantime, the group has initiated a campaign across the state in the form of pamphlets and posters pasted through its 30,000 wide retail chain sensitising the farmers and its telecom clients that they were being ‘misinformed’. Many such posters, under heading ‘Tathya’ (reality), could be seen pasted on walls, doors and counters of it franchise outlets.

To widen the message’s reach, sarpanches of Majha, Doaba and Malwa villages in Punjab were approached to convey that the firm has never done any ‘corporate or contract farming’ in the past and has no plans to enter this business. In the posters and pamphlets, which are in English, Hindi and Punjabi, the group claims that it has not purchased any agricultural land, directly or indirectly in Punjab, Haryana or anywhere else in the country for the purpose of corporate or contract farming.

Besides, the group endorsed that suppliers should strictly abide by the minimum support price (MSP) mechanism when it comes to purchase of foodgrains. A group official said some rival cellular operators were taking undue advantage by encouraging the consumers to port their SIM cards to their network in many parts of Punjab.

“Though after the intervention of the state government, the group has managed to restore the mobile phone towers by up to 90 per cent, we have discovered handwritten posters in the market by rival operators saying ‘apne desh ko bachao… aur number port karao….’ and giving recharge worth Rs 500 absolutely free. Our fight is against these unethical practices of trading too. This is happening across the state and Haryana too,” he said.

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