Farmers Protest becomes Bigger! | Untold Voices

It has been more than 10 days since the farmer’s protest has been going on in Delhi. There have been more than 5 rounds of talks between the government and the farmers but this protest doesn’t seem to be getting over. In fact farmers have said that they will further intensify the protest.

This protest is only getting bigger.

People from all over the country and other states are now joining the protest. Why is this happening?

Let’s get to know the updates regarding the farmers protest in this Article.

What dialogue has taken place between the farmers and the government and why this protest is only getting bigger?

On the night of 8th December, many farmer leaders met Home Minister Amit Shah to talk to him. The Home Minister had said that the government is ready to address all the concerns of the farmers. They released a 20-page proposal on behalf of the government saying that they are ready to amend these farm laws. The entire document of this proposal is linked in the description below if you want to refer to it. But in my opinion, there are many issues that the government has tried addressing which were arising out of these farm laws, many problems and the fear of the farmers. If you recall, I had discussed in this video the problems in these three farm laws, the issues and concerns for the farmers. One of the issues was that under the new laws, the farmers had no way of approaching the civil court in case of a dispute. In case of a dispute, they had to resolve it at the level of SDM. The government has said in its new proposal that they will come up with such an amendment that the farmers have the provision to approach a civil court.

The second biggest issue was that farmers feared APMC Mandis would be quashed because there are no taxes outside of the Mandi while there are taxes inside the Mandi.

So to resolve this issue, the government has said in its proposal that they will bring in such an amendment that the state government will have the option to tax the private mandis as well. This will create a level playing field for both the APMC Mandi and outside it because similar taxes will be charged. But this will be up to the state governments.

Thirdly, farmers fear higher possibilities of cheating because according to the new laws anyone can buy crops from the farmers simply on the basis of a PAN Card.

To resolve this issue, the government has proposed that such an amendment will be brought that will give power to the state governments to register the traders and to make their own rules keeping in mind the local situation.

The next biggest issue was that farmers fear that the MSP system will be quashed because MSP is applicable inside the APMC Mandi. Outside the Mandi, there is no MSP.

Bhat Aasim