NEW DELHI: Delhi Agricultural Minister Gopal Rai Monday appealed to the Centre to accept the demands of farmers protesting against the new agri-marketing laws and resolve the deadlock over the issue on priority.
He made the remarks at a meeting here called by the Centre for discussing farmers' welfare.
The meeting was also attended by Union MoSes for Agriculture Parshottam Rupala and Kailash Choudhary, and the agriculture minister of Haryana, besides officials of the Punjab government and those of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR).
He also raised the issues of Minimum Support Price (MSP), besides demanding the implementation of the Swaminathan Committee Report and requesting the use of bio-decomposer developed by the PUSA, across the country to stop stubble burning.
"The protesting farmers have been shivering in the cold for the past 11 days," Rai told reporters, referring to the thousands of farmers who have been sitting at various border points of Delhi in agitation against the three recently enacted laws.
"The Center should not delay accepting the demands of the farmers and resolve the deadlock on priority basis," he said.
He also said the Central government must look into and study the bio-decomposer technique used by the Delhi government to stop stubble burning and implement in in all states.
"In the meeting, we discussed various initiatives for farmers and how their incomes can be increased.
The Central government should implement the recommendations of the Swaminathan Commission on the minimum support price (MSP).
"We have MSP today also, but we should follow the recommendations of the Swaminathan Commission.
That is what I have suggested.
The tragedy today is that the current MSP is such that this doesn't help farmers at all," Rai said.
He said that in some states, the MSP is Rs 1,800 per quintal but farmers are forced to sell their produces at prices as low as Rs 800, Rs 900 or Rs 1,000.
"I have requested the Central government that they listen to the demands of the farmers and bring in a law for MSP.
This will help all the farmers across the country.
"I have also told the Centre that they must listen to the demands of farmers,y because for the past 11 days they are protesting sitting on the road in this winter.
I have requested the Center to avoid any more delay on the issue," he said.
Thousands of farmers, mostly from Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, are protesting at various border points of Delhi against the new farm laws.
Several rounds of talks between the Centre and farmers have failed to break the deadlock.