The 4th round of talks between farmers who are protesting in Delhi and Union Ministers was held in Chandigarh on February 18.
Union Minister Piyush Goyal said that it has been proposed to enter into an agreement through the cooperative societies and purchase the goods at the minimum support price. He said this after a discussion with the farmers.
Many agricultural organisations are marching towards Delhi with various demands including minimum support price for agricultural produce, guarantee of procurement, waiver of farm loans and pension. In this situation, the Union government had a 4th phase negotiation with the farmers organisation.
4th round of talks
Union Agriculture Minister, Arjun Munda; Union Commerce Minister, Piyush Goyal and Union Minister of State, Nithyananda Roy are part of the negotiation with the farmers’ representatives. Along with them the Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann also took part in the talks.
Already, three rounds of talks happened between these farmers organisations and Union Ministers but those are in vain. So this 4th phase of talks was organized.
Negotiations took place for about 5 hours. Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann participated in this to support the farmers of Punjab and insisted on a minimum support price for procurement of pulses.
Union Minister’s proposal
After these talks, Minister Piyush Goyal said that they proposed a new idea which will procure agricultural products from farmers at minimum support price for a period of five years without any upper limit through cooperative societies like National Cooperative Consumers Federation and National Agricultural Cooperative Market Federation. The Cotton Corporation of India will also formally enter into an agreement and undertake procurement at the minimum support price.
Now, the farmers’ organisations have to inform the government about their decision on this new proposal and the government will also have to talk to the relevant cooperative societies.
Farmers reaction to Union Ministers proposals
Punjab Kisan Mastur Shankar Committee general secretary Sarwan Singh Pander said, “We will discuss the Union government’s proposal together and make a decision soon. The next round of negotiations will be held on February 19 or 20. Based on that, we are going to decide about the Delhi Chalo rally. We want to work with the government to solve the problems. Let’s try it. Union Ministers have said that they will discuss our other demands when they return to Delhi”.
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