Countrywide agitation on 6 Feb, highways to be blocked for 3 hours: Farmer leaders
The farmers said that agitation is a response to internet shutdowns in areas around the protest sites and farmers being ignored in the Union Budget that was announced on Monday
The protesting farmers are planning to block all national and state highways between 12 pm and 3 pm on 6 February as they conduct a countrywide agitation, farmer leader Balbir Singh Rajewal said on Monday.
"There will be a country-wide agitation on 6 February; we will block roads between 12 pm and 3 pm," Singh was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
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The farmers said that agitation is a response to internet shutdowns in areas around the protest sites and farmers being ignored in the Union Budget that was announced on Monday.
Representatives of the protesting farmers' unions expressed their anger and said that the budget fails to address their concerns, with no mention of raising incomes or generating jobs.
"Last year, budget allocation for the financial support extended through loans to Food Corporation of India for procurement at MSP was ₹1,36,600 crore. Less than ₹85,000 was spent. No amount is allocated this year. Such things make farmers think that it's a conspiracy to shut FCI," said Yogendra Yadav of Swaraj India.
In her annual budget, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented data on rising government spending for purchasing grains and pulses at support prices, and promised to strengthen the state-regulated markets, or Agricultural Produce Market Committees (APMCs), further.
The Budget promised to add 1,000 more regulated markets to the electronic national agriculture market, or e-NAM platform, where 17 million Indian farmers have already been registered.
Sitharaman set the target of agricultural credit to ₹16.5 trillion ($225.74 billion) from ₹15 trillion and said the government would raise ₹30,000 crore in the next fiscal year with a new tax to boost agricultural infrastructure.
The FM's announcements were focused to counter the criticism that the three reform laws passed by the BJP-led government at the Centre will weaken state-regulated mandis and lead to lower government purchase at MSP.
However, it did little to reassure the protesting farmers.
"Forget about these targets. There is not even one measure to either raise farmers' income or generate jobs in the countryside. She didn't talk about her government's promise of doubling farmers' income by 2022," farmers leader Kirankumar Visa had said earlier in the day.