No talks with farm unions but panel to submit action plan in SC

Even as the protesting farmer unions, holding a sit-in on the Punjab-Haryana border for the past seven months, have decided not to engage in talks with the Supreme Court-appointed panel, the committee has decided to move ahead with its work.

The committee, headed by former Punjab and Haryana high court judge justice Nawab Singh has resolved that before the upcoming hearing in the apex court on October 14, it will submit its agenda points and issues under consideration, before the court.

On September 2, the apex court constituted the committee to amicably resolve the grievances of protesting farmers. A bench of justices Surya Kant and Ujjal Bhuyan directed the committee to reach out to the agitating farmers to immediately remove their tractors and trolleys from the Shambhu border to provide relief to commuters.

The protesting farmers, led by Kisan Mazdoor Morcha (KMM) and the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (Non-Political), have been camping at the Shambhu and Khanauri border points between Punjab and Haryana since February 13 when their “Delhi Chalo” march was stopped by the security forces.

“Farm bodies have reached a unanimous decision to decline the committee’s invitation,” a senior farmer leader, aware of the matter, said raising apprehension that the committee lacks the political power and authority to address their core demands, particularly the legal guarantee for minimum support price (MSP) on all 23 crops.

The farmers are agitating over a plethora of demands, including legal guarantee of MSP for their produce, implementation of the Swaminathan Commission’s formula, full debt waiver for farmers, pension for farmers and labourers and withdrawal of cases against farmers during the 2020-21 protest.

A committee member, pleading anonymity, said: “We (the committee) might even move further than setting the agenda for our work.”

The members are not willing to be officially quoted as according to them, the submission will be made before the Supreme Court then only something can be revealed officially.

The member suggested that action points and course corrections will be put before the apex court.

Apart from justice Nawab Singh, (retd) the other members of the committee include BS Sandhu, a former DGP Haryana, eminent policy analyst Devinder Sharma, Ranjit Singh Ghuman, professor of eminence Guru Nanak Dev University and former head of economics department Punjabi University, and Sukhpal Singh, chairman farmers commission, Punjab.

The members are of the opinion that the ambit of the work assigned to them by SC is very wide, which includes farmers, farm labourers and below-poverty line people who are part of the rural economy and protesting farmers are a small part of that.

“Even if they (the farm bodies protesting at two states’ borders) are not willing to talk to us, our work will include their welfare also,” said a member. On September 20, the committee wrote to protesting farm bodies for talks.

The committee members are also expected to talk to other farm bodies, government representatives in the agriculture sector, ministers in the two states and the union agriculture minister to ponder over the issues.

Rejecting the apprehensions of the farm bodies, committee members said their efforts are directed towards strengthening the farmers.