Lok Samiti & NBJK Welcome #FarmerAgitators from Odisha

17 January 2021, Bahera (Chauparan, Hazaribag): At NBJK’s Bahera Ashram, the workers of Hazaribag District Lok Samiti & Nav Bharat Jagriti Kendra have welcomed around 500 farmers from Odisha going to Delhi via Bhubaneswar, Khadagpur, Jamshedpur, Ranchi, Hazaribag, Gaya, Banaras and Lucknow.

On this occasion, Mr. Girija Satish (President, National Lok Samiti & NBJK) has greeted them and called the Farmers’ Agitation as a big spontaneous protest. He said about their 5 months plus demonstration as a most impressive people’s movement since independence. Mr. Girija stated that the agriculture related three laws by our central government are not in interest of farmers and these will be harmful for them. National Lok Samiti’s president has termed the provisions of contract farming as anti-farmers and said that these would benefit big companies and the farmers who are owners of their land presently will be compelled to work as laborers on their own land later. These laws permit big traders for desired hoarding of agriculture products, while a farmers doesn’t possess such resources to keep own products safely for long time. Also it’s said that the farmer can sell his produces at preferred places but practically we see that he is unable to vend his crop in distant areas and that means profit to rich people again. Besides this there is no guarantee for Minimum Support Price (MSP) to farmers for their crops. Thus the legal necessity of MSP is must and the government should make concerned law so that the farmers could get proper price. Mr. Girija Satish has appreciated the farmers for awareness towards their problems and said that our hundreds of companions have left their home and stuck in Delhi amid cold wave to oppose Agriculture Laws and many of them passes away, which is a matter of deep concern. There is growing support to the movement by intellectuals from India & abroad and our government should address the problems of farmers immediately, he pointed out.

Mr. Akshay Kumar who leads the farmer agitators has blamed the central government for averting the solution in name of negotiation and willing to make a way for corporate monopoly from seed to fertilizer. He is coordinator of Joint Farmers’ Front, belongs to Katak district of Odisha and worked with Baba Amte and Anna Hazare earlier. Also other farmer leaders as Mr. Shashidev Nanda (Odisha), Mr. Himanshu Tiwary (U. P.), Mr. Gaurav Kumar, Mr. Om Prakash (Tata Nagar) were present in the welcome meeting. A team of NBJK-LS workers like Mr. Virendra Sinha, Ms Rina Pandey, Mr. Brijnandan Singh, Mr. Vijay Kumar and Mr. Anjani Sinha has contributed to the program.

For Hindi news, follow http://hazaribagh.info/2021/13957/