Crop loss: BKU Ekta Ugrahan submits memo to DC

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, July 22

Members of the BKU Ekta Ugrahan on Monday staged a protest in front of the District Administrative Complex (DAC) and submitted a memorandum of demands to the Deputy Commissioner, Bathinda, seeking compensation for the crop loss caused after incessant rain recently.

The members raised slogans and demanded that the administration must conduct a survey to assess the quantum of crop loss and provide compensation to them accordingly.

Addressing a gathering of farmers in front of the complex, Jhanda Singh Jethuke, state senior vice-president of the union, said, “Farmers in the district have suffered huge losses as cotton and paddy crops got damaged in several villages. Apart from crop loss, houses of many farmers got damaged and even tubewells and breaches in tributary channels were also reported in some villages. Drains are not cleaned on time by the authorities concerned, so rainwater leads to breaches and flooding of fields.”

Singara Singh Mann, president of the union, said, “Instead of hiring workers for cleaning of the tributary channels of the Sirhind canal, JCB machines are pressed into service that damages tributaries. We have submitted a memorandum of demands to Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh through the Deputy Commissioner on Monday in which we have demanded that the government must conduct a girdawari and provide adequate compensation for crop loss to the farmers. We have demanded that cleaning of drains and repair work of the canal system must be done on a regular basis.

Adequate arrangements must be made to store rainwater and the government should lift restrictions on the fixed date for paddy cultivation.”

They alleged that the police had not taken action in the case where two commission agents had abetted a farmer’s suicide. The victim hailed from Bhucho Khurd village. They alleged that after the farm union members observed an indefinite protest outside the Cantt police station, the police department registered a case against the accused, but did not arrest them. Citing inaction on the part of the police, the union members have also given a call for a state-wide protest on July 26.