Farmers block rail traffic, commuters left in lurch

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, October 7

Rail traffic in Bathinda remained blocked due to farmers’ protest leaving the passengers and vendors in lurch while the commuters had to board the buses that were overcrowded after the protesting farmers blocked the railway lines, including Bathinda-Bikaner, Bathinda-Ambala, Bathinda–Delhi, and Bathinda–Rewai lines.

Five trains were suspended till 5 pm following the blockade by farmers over raliway lines in Bathinda while routes of a number of other trains were diverted from different rail lines and schedule of some trains were changed.

In an attempt to force the Central and the state government to fulfill their demands, eight farmer unions that announced earlier to block rail lines, today blocked the rail traffic in Bathinda and Mansa districts leaving the commuters in lurch.

Railway stations were left deserted, however, the commuters had to face the hard time while boarding buses that were already overcrowded. A large number of commuters board the buses and sat on roof of the buses.

“I had to reach New Delhi along with my wife today. But trains have been cancelled. Bus takes about 10 hours whereas train takes five. The railway authorities are saying that trains would now go late via some other route that too will take long time to reach Delhi,” said, a passenger Gurjit Singh.

Rail traffic was disrupted Rampura Phul of Bathinda and in Mansa by about eight farmer unions, including BKU Dkaunda, BKU Ugrahan Union, Punjab Kisan Union, BKU Krantikari, BKU Kirti Kisan Union, Jamhuri Kisan Sabha and two different Sangarsh committees who had earlier staged protest in their respective districts round-the-clock against state government over their demands of compensation of Rs 40,000 per acre to each cotton farmer who witnessed damaged due to whitefly attack in Cotton belt of Punjab.

The farmers are also demanding that the government should provide the compensation of Rs 20,000 to all those labourer families who had got unemployed due to cotton crop damage this time. Besides, they had added a demand of Rs 4,000 as MSP for Basmati crop variety PUSA 1509 and Rs 5,000 for PUSA 1121.

On October 2, however, the farmers’ agitation got support from some local NGOs in Bathinda that cleaned up the surroundings of farmers protest site in Bathinda under which a number of NGOs of Bathinda under the banner of BANGO (Bathinda Association of NGOs) swept the dust and garbage lying near the open kitchen of farmers at their protest site in Bathinda.

Earlier, in Bathinda, farmers had protested from September 17 to October 4 for the same demands.