Farmers protesting against "tardy" paddy procurement Sunday evening decided to lift their blockade from national highways at four places in Punjab but said their roadside sit-in would continue.
The farmers under the banner of Kisan Mazdoor Morcha on Saturday held road blockades at a few places in the state for an indefinite period to protest the "tardy" paddy procurement and lifting and other issues.
On Sunday, a two-and-a-half-hour meeting was held between the farmers' representatives with two Punjab ministers, after which agitating farmers declared to lift their blockade.
The meeting was held between Food and Civil Supplies Minister Lal Chand Kataruchak and Agriculture Minister Gurmit Singh Khudian, leaders of farmers' bodies including Sarwan Singh Pandher of Kisan Mazdoor Morcha, Manjit Singh Rai and Satnam Singh Sahni of BKU(D) and ADGP (Law & Order) SPS Parmar, DIG (Border Range) Satinder Singh and other officials.
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Protests were held at Badarukhan on Sangrur-Bathinda highway in Sangrur, Dagru on Moga-Ferozepur highway in Moga, Satiali Phul on Gurdasour-Tanda highway in Gurdaspur and Batala railway station, said farmers.
In Phagwara, farmers had already been holding a protest on Amritsar-Delhi national highway for the past many days.
Addressing a press conference after the meeting, Pandher declared that the blockade will be lifted with immediate effect this evening but the sit-in will continue till the next strategy was announced.
He said squatters will sit on sides of roads and will not block them.
He also said the Punjab government has assured them that the process of lifting paddy would be accelerated.
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Notably, paddy lifting from mandis in Punjab has been hit after the state rice millers refused to mill the paddy till their demands were met.
Pandher said the government has said that the issues with rice millers has been resolved.
He said the state government has also assured to compensate the farmers for paddy sold at price lower than the MSP in recent days.
The Punjab government has assured that the "bharpai" (compensation) will be done, said Pandher.
"We will hold a meeting of various farmers' bodies after two days to review the situation and also see if the government fulfilled its promises," he said.
Minister Kataruchak pointed out that farmers brought to his notice that in initial days of procurement, MSP norms were violated. "We have asked farmers to give us a list of those paddy growers who had faced cuts," the minister told the media.
"We will make those who imposed these cuts to make up for the loss," he assured.
Kataruchak said the government has been given target of 1.85 lakh metric tonne (MT) of paddy procurement which will be met.
He said till Saturday, of the 54 lakh MT paddy arrivals in mandis, nearly 52 lakh MT has been procured.
Minister Khudian said that there was no shortage of DAP fertilizer in the state.
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"A total 4.25 lakh MT of DAP was used and we have already 3.25 lakh MT stock while rakes of the remaining stock were coming," he said.
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