Bharatiya Kisan Union’s Delhi unit president Birender Dagar (centre) submitted the letter in person, Tuesday. (Express)Members of a farmers’ union Tuesday submitted a letter to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal seeking action on the issue of crops being procured below the Minimum Support Price (MSP) from farmers at mandis in Delhi.
The letter was submitted in person by Bharatiya Kisan Union’s Delhi unit president Birender Dagar after Kejriwal had reviewed the process for developing a decomposer solution for paddy stubble management at a centre in a village at Najafgarh.
“In Najafgarh and Narela anaj mandis, procurement on MSP has not been done since 2015. Farmers in Delhi are troubled because of this,” he said.
Members of the Union said dhan (paddy) is being procured at a rate of Rs 1,600 per quintal against an MSP of Rs 1,900, wheat at Rs 1,650 per quintal against MSP of Rs 1,950, and bajra at Rs 1,200 per quintal against MSP of Rs 2,150.
In the letter, Dagar also mentioned other problems farmers were facing, including the issue of over 200 acres of farmland around the Najafgarh drain near Southwest Delhi’s Rawta village being submerged under overflowing water from the drain and demanded compensation for affected farmers.
“For over a decade, overflowing water from Najafgarh drain number 8 — which used to be Sahibi river, but turned into a drain because of the administration’s mistakes — has submerged over 200 acres of farmland with dirty water…,” the letter said.
He also said in the letter that after announcement of a land pooling policy in 2018 in 94 villages in Delhi, land mutation requests from one owner to another has not been processed. This issue, said residents of villages in Najafgarh, causes hindrance in availing government subsidies and taking loans.
Dagar sought Kejriwal’s intervention on these issues. The Indian Express sent queries to a Delhi government spokesperson Tuesday but did not receive a response.
Dagar and other Najafgarh farmers had also raised these issues during a protest on September 25, when a coalition of farmers across the country had called for a nationwide bandh to oppose the farm Bills.
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