Pending demands: Cabinet subcommittee meets farmers’ unions
Chandigarh: A cabinet subcommittee comprising Harpal Singh Cheema, Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal and Gurmeet Singh Khudian on Tuesday held meetings with farmers and employee organisations to discuss their pending demands.
The three ministers met representatives of the Sanyukt Kisan Morcha, Bhartiya Kisan Union Ekta, Sidhupur and the Sanyukt Ganna Sangharsh Morcha to discuss various issues, including compensation for crop damage, acquisition of land for highways and the price of sugarcane.
An official spokesperson said the cabinet sub-committee assured the farmers that a decision regarding crop damage compensation would be taken soon in a meeting of the state executive committee. It also assured the farmer unions that a meeting of all commissioners of the state will be convened soon to ensure that all such cases are resolved within the next three months.
On sugarcane price, the ministers told the farmers that Punjab has already announced a hike in the state agreed price (SAP), while directing the agriculture department to form a committee comprising officials, sugarcane experts and sugarcane farmers to study the cost price of producing sugarcane, suitable variety of sugarcane for Punjab and other concerns of the farmers so that concrete steps to be taken to address the concerns of the farmers.
In response to the farmers’ demand that the price of sugarcane be announced in February itself, the sub-committee said that a decision in this regard would also be taken by this committee based on experts and farmers after thorough discussions.
Earlier, during the meeting with the Punjab Police Corona Volunteers, it was decided to constitute a committee comprising ADGP (HR) and two IG-level officers to study their case.
They asked the committee to sympathetically study the issues and demands of corona volunteers and submit their report.
