Farmers install barriers; dump milk, vegetables brought by villagers

PATIALA: Farmers in Banur division of the district on Saturday dumped their vegetables on road as a symbolic protest. The protesting farmers also did not spare villagers and farmers bringing their vegetables and milk to the grain markets.

In Banur grain market some farmers brought the vegetables to sell but leaders of some farmer unions threw their produce on the road and asked them to return. The villagers were also asked to continue with their support to the protest instead of supplying their produce in the market and thus weakening the protest. On Friday, some farmers took away the vegetables from the grain market of Mandi Gobindgarh town of Fatehgarh Sahib district and tried to gave these to a local gurdwara at Mandi Gobindgarh. However, later they returned it to the owners after the gurdwara manager and some eminent Sikh scholars in the town condemned this act.

At a number of places the farmers have even installed barriers. At Nabha division, farmers put up a barrier when on Saturday morning they spotted some shopkeepers bringing vegetables from villages to sell it further. Farmers claimed that these shopkeepers would further sell these vegetables on the black market besides disrupting their protest.

Nabha DSP Chand Singh claimed that in the morning some farmers stopped the shopkeepers but the police intervened and the matter was resolved on the spot while farmers were given instructions to refrain from creating any problem in the cities and continue with their protest peacefully in villages.

On the other hand, some farmer unions, including BKU Dkaunda and BKU Ugraha, have condemned the act of dumping vegetables and milk on the road. “We condemn the act of dumping the vegetables on the roads and we do not extend our support to this. We back the protest but have an opinion that these vegetables and milk should be given free of cost to patients at government hospitals or be given to gurdwaras. We condemn the Centre for hiking the fuel prices and failing to meet their promise of implementation of Swaminathan report. Farmers are not getting reasonable prices for their produce in times when inflation had also given another setback to farmers,” BKU Dkaunda leader Karnail Singh said.

The BKU leader, Karnail Singh, said that farmers will have to face huge losses as perishable products like vegetables and milk could not be stored for a long time. “In my own Lang village, farmers who used to sell their milk to dairies will have to face a loss of over Rs 3 lakh in 10 days,” he added.