Farmers reject govt's formula, stir to go on

Farmer leaders from Punjab rejected on Monday the latest offer from the central government on guaranteeing floor prices for select crops, and announced that they will on Wednesday resume their march to the national Capital on - a plan that has prompted police in Haryana and Delhi to seal off key borders for days now.

- Karam Prakash

The announcement came after the two outfits leading the agitation, Punjab Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee (KSMC) and Bharatiya Kisan Union (Ekta Sidhupur), held a fourth round of talks with Union ministers in Chandigarh till early hours of Monday.

At the meeting, the government offered a new mechanism -five-year contracts with cooperative societies to procure pulses, maize and cotton at minimum support prices (MSP).

After returning to the Shambhu border between Punjab and Haryana, where a caravan of thousands of farmers initially headed to Delhi on February 13 has halted, the leaders of the two unions announced that the offer was rejected.

"After the discussion of both forums, it has been decided that if you analyse, there is nothing in the government's proposal... This is not on the favour of ers. We reject it," said Jagjit Singh Dallewal, who heads the BKU (Ekta Sidhupur).

"The Centre says something else in the discussions and while speaking at the press conference outside, they say different things. We have not given any proposal. We will move towards Delhi on February 21 at llam," added Sarwan Singh Pandher, the general secretary of KSMC.

Pandher said that they still stand on their main demand of a legal guarantee of MSP on all 23 crops. He added that the government's proposal to give MSP for only five years on selected crops was a step closer to contract farming-which was unacceptable.