Skip to main content

Compensate for demonetization loss or face farmers' ire during polls: Khedut Samaj warns Gujarat govt

Sagar Rabari (second from left) leading march to Gandhinagar
By Our Representative
Khedut Samaj Gujarat (KSG), the state’s non-political farmers’ organization, has demanded that the Gujarat government make a thorough assessment of the crop loss suffered by farmers due to demonetization, especially in horticultural and vegetable sectors, and compensate for them through a special package.
The demand has been made in a memorandum to Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani following a 450-kilometre-long footmarch, which started at the historical Somnath temple on December 14, ending off Gandhinagar, the state capital, on Monday.
Led by Sagar Rabari, KSG leader, around 1,800 farmers’ representatives participated on the last leg of the footmarch. Most of them belonged to the Saurashtra region of Gujarat, from Gir, Junagadh, Rajkot, Bhavnagar and Surendranagar districts. Farmers from Ahmedabad, North Gujarat and North Gujarat districts too joined in.
During the footmarch, farmers at several villages are said to have pointed towards how demonetization has compounded their difficulties at the height of the sowing season, leading to “extreme frustration and anger”.
Other issues in the memorandum, which is based on meetings with thousands villagers during the footmarch, included dropping various legislative actions of the Gujarat government that undermined the farmers’ land rights. The latest in the series is amendment to the Land Acquisition Act (LAA), 2013, which abandons LAA’s social impact assessment and consent clauses.
During the footmarch – which passed through Dholera SIR – Magsaysay award-winning Gandhian social worker Sandeep Pandey, Rakesh Maheria and Bhupat Solanki of the Rashtriya Dalit Adhikar Andolan, Vimlaben Kharadi of the Adivasi Yuva Vikas Sangathan, consultant Persis Ginwalla, social activist Jimmy Dabhi, economist Rohit Shukla, and well-known Gandhian campaigner Indukumar Jani participated.
The memorandum asks the state government to also abrogate the Special Investment Region (SIR), Act, 2009, which is being used by the state government to set aside 50 per cent of the farmers’ land in the name of urban infrastructure, and the Drainage an Irrigation Act, which seeks to divert water, meant for farmers, to industry.
Asking the state government to stop land acquisition in the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor, the memorandum echoes farmers’ concern to stop decommanding areas which come under the Narmada irrigation area and diverting them to industry, even as stop increasing irrigation rates for farmers.
Seeking compensation to the tune of Rs 50,000 per acre because of crop loss, instead of just Rs 15,000-20,000, the memorandum reminds the chief minister that the farmers would get electricity for groundwater irrigation for 18 hours till 2003, which has now gone down to eight hours.
“We must get 24 hour irrigation”, the memorandum insists.
Marching in a file of two, the foormarchers were stopped by the police near village Tarapur on way to Gandhinagar, where they were told that the chief minister would not be available, and that an officer would receive the memorandum. They were assured a meeting with Rupani later this week.
After handing over the memorandum to a Rupani aide, Rabari told newspersons, “Ironically, the Vibrant Gujarat global business meet, to be held in Gandhinagar on January 10-12, is more important for the state government than farmers.”
He accused the government of listening to tycoons, who would discuss allocation of land and water, at the business meet but not farmers.
He warned, if the farmers’ were not met, they would employ the ultimate weapon in a democracy – franchise. “We will ask people to vote for anyone except the present regime which has worked to destroy farmers and agriculture”, Rabari said.

Comments

TRENDING

'Enough evidence' in Indian tradition to support legal basis for same-sex marriage

By Iyce Malhotra, Joseph Mathai, Sandeep Chachra*  The ongoing hearing in the Supreme Court on same-sex marriage provides space for much-needed conversations on issues that have hitherto remained “invisible” or engaged with patriarchal locker room humour. We must recognize that people with diverse sexualities and complex gender identities have faced discrimination, stigma and decades of oppression. Their issues have mainly remained buried in dominant social discourse, and many view them with deep insecurities.

Savarkar 'criminally betrayed' Netaji and his INA by siding with the British rulers

By Shamsul Islam* RSS-BJP rulers of India have been trying to show off as great fans of Netaji. But Indians must know what role ideological parents of today's RSS/BJP played against Netaji and Indian National Army (INA). The Hindu Mahasabha and RSS which always had prominent lawyers on their rolls made no attempt to defend the INA accused at Red Fort trials.

Buddhist shrines were 'massively destroyed' by Brahmanical rulers: Historian DN Jha

Nalanda mahavihara By Our Representative Prominent historian DN Jha, an expert in India's ancient and medieval past, in his new book , "Against the Grain: Notes on Identity, Intolerance and History", in a sharp critique of "Hindutva ideologues", who look at the ancient period of Indian history as "a golden age marked by social harmony, devoid of any religious violence", has said, "Demolition and desecration of rival religious establishments, and the appropriation of their idols, was not uncommon in India before the advent of Islam".

Victim of communal violence, Christians in Manipur want Church leadership to speak up

By Fr Cedric Prakash SJ*  The first eleven days of May 2023 have, in many ways, been a defining period of Indian history! Plenty has happened in a rapid-fire stream of events. Ironically, each one of them are indicators of how crimes and the criminalisation of society has become the ‘new norm’; these include, the May Day rallies with a focus on the four labour codes which are patently against the rights of workers; the U S Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) released its Annual Report on 1 May stating that conditions for religious freedom in India “continued to worsen in 2022”; the continued protest by the Indian women wrestlers at Jantar Mantar for the expulsion of the chief of the Indian Wrestlers Federation on very serious allegations; the Elections in Karnataka on 10 May (with communalism and corruption as the mainstay); the release of the fake, derogative and insensitive film ‘The Kerala Story’; the release of World Free Press Index on 3 May which places India

Delhi HC rules in favour of retired Air Force officer 'overcharged' for Covid treatment

By Rosamma Thomas*  In a decision of May 22, 2023, the Delhi High Court ruled in favour of petitioner Group Captain Suresh Khanna who was under treatment at CK Birla Hospital, Gurugram, between April 28 and May 5, 2021, for a period of eight days, for Covid-19 pneumonia. The petitioner had to pay Rs 3,55,286 as treatment costs, but the Ex-Servicemen Contributory Health Scheme (ECHS) only reimbursed him for Rs 1,83,748, on the basis of government-approved rates. 

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

Unlike other revolutionaries, Hindutva icon wrote 5 mercy petitions to British masters

By Shamsul Islam*  The Hindutva icon VD Savarkar of the RSS-BJP rulers of India submitted not one, two,or three but five mercy petitions to the British masters! Savarkarites argue: “There are no evidences to prove that Savarkar collaborated with the British for his release from jail. In fact, his appeal for release was a ruse. He was well aware of the political developments outside and wanted to be part of it. So he kept requesting for his release. But the British authorities did not trust him a bit” (YD Phadke, ‘A complex Hero’, "The Indian Expres"s, August 31, 2004)

India joining US sponsored trade pillar to hurt Indian farmers, 'promote' GM seeds, food

Counterview Desk  As many as 32 civil society organisations (CSOs), in a letter to Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal on the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) and India joining the trade pillar, have said that its provisions will allow the US to ensure a more favourable regulatory regime “for enhancing its exports of genetically modified (GM) seeds and GM food”, underlining, it will “significantly hurt the livelihoods of Indian farmers.”

Savarkar 'opposed' Bhagat Singh's, Netaji's dream of India, supported British war efforts

By Shamsul Islam* In a shocking development, the student wing of the RSS put the busts of martyrs Bhagat Singh and Subhash Chandra Bose with Savarkar's on one pedestal at the University of Delhi late in the night on August 20, 2019. Bhagat Singh sacrificed his life for a socialist-democratic-secular republic and Netaji raised Azad Hind Fauj (INA) consisting of people of all religions and regions for armed liberation of India.

Undermining law, breastfeeding? Businesses 'using' celebrities to promote baby food

By Rajiv Shah  A report prepared by the top child welfare NGO, Breastfeeding Promotion Network of India (BPNI), has identified as many as 15 offenders allegedly violating the Indian baby food law, the Infant Milk Substitutes Feeding Bottles, and Infant Foods (Regulation of Production, Supply and Distribution) Act 1992, and Amendment Act 2003 (IMS Act), stating, compliance with the law “seems to be dwindling by the day.”