PM Modi to flag off 100th Kisan Rail today as anti-farm law protests enter day 33
The train will run between Sangola in Maharashtra and West Bengal’s Shalimar and will be flagged off virtually at 4:30 pm.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will on Monday virtually flag off the 100th ‘Kisan Rail’ service at 4:30 pm. This comes on a day when protests against the Centre’s three contentious agricultural laws entered day 33.
Union agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar and railway minister Piyush Goyal - two of the three central ministers who have represented the Centre in its talks with the farmers’ unions - will also be present on the occasion.
“Kisan Rail has been a game-changer in ensuring fast transportation of agricultural produce across the nation. It provides a seamless supply chain of perishable produce,” the prime minister’s office (PMO) had noted in a statement on Saturday. The 100th ‘Kisan Rail’ will run between Sangola in Maharashtra and West Bengal’s Shalimar and, the PMO statement said, will carry vegetables such as cauliflower, capsicum, cabbage, drumsticks, chillies, onions, and fruits like grapes, oranges, pomegranate, bananas, custard apples etc.
The first service of the “multi-commodity” Kisan Rail was launched on August 7 by Tomar via video conferencing. The service was launched between Maharashtra’s Devlali and Danapur in Bihar and was later expanded to Muzaffarpur in the eastern state following a good response. Also, it was made a weekly service instead of the initial thrice a week frequency. Since its launch, the Kisan Rail service has transported 27,000 tonnes of agro-services. The Centre has also extended a subsidy of 50% on the transportation of fruits and vegetables.
The launch of the 100th Kisan Rail comes a day before the sixth round of talks are likely to take place between the government and the farmers’ unions. The unions on Saturday proposed that the talks take place at 11 am on December 29, in their response to the government’s invitation to hold the dialogue at a time and date of their choosing. Earlier, the unions had rejected the government’s initial proposal in this regard.
Five earlier rounds of talks, including one each on December 1, 3 and 5, have failed to break the deadlock between the two sides.
