Jalandhar(Parteek Singh): The farmers of Doaba will block the Jalandhar-Phagwara national highway near Chaheru to protest against the government for not increasing the prices sugarcane crop on Wednesday. The farmers are demanding an increase in State Assured Price(SAP) of sugarcane to Rs 350 per quintal, which is right now between Rs 285-300 per quintal in Punjab. The farmers have earlier warned the government to protest on 15 November, so administrative and police officials held a meeting with farmers on Tuesday to postpone the protest but the meeting ended without any result as farmers said no senior government official has assured us the increase in rates.
Deputy Commissioner, Jalandhar Varinder Kumar Sharma, Additional Deputy Commissioner, Kapurthala, Rahul Chaba, SSP Jalandhar(Rural) Gurpreet Singh Bhullar and other officers tried to convince them but farmers demanded nothing less than state level assurance.
Doaba Kisan Sangarsh Committee, President, Manjit Singh Rai said farmers will protest against the government by blocking the national highway from 12 pm on Wednesday to indefinite period till their demands are considered by the government. He said prices have not increased from last 5 years in Punjab where in other states like Haryana price is 330 per quintal, we demand price should be increased to Rs 350 per quintal. He said private mill owners are already ready to pay 325 per quintal but the government is not raising the prices. Farmers are under economic crisis in Punjab, Government is promising to waive farmer debts, instead of this, we demand they should pay us the right value of our crop so there will be no need of loan for farmer. He said today a meeting was held with the officials which ended without any fruitful result. We have stepped down from our demand to issue a notice about this and we only demanded that a state level senior official should assure us but there was no response from the government only local officials reached us, we will not stop our protest unleash there will be any proper assurance by government to increase the SAP of sugarcane crop.