Delhi: Seventh round of meeting between Central Government & farmers' representatives begins at Vigyan Bhawan.#FarmLaws pic.twitter.com/5eO8bGjwzQ
— ANI (@ANI) January 4, 2021
After the BJP-led government had passed the new farm laws, the farmers from Punjab raised objection to it. Furthermore, they even have blocked borders around the national capital causing a lot of damage to common people, in terms, traffic disruptions. The government , on the other hand, had invited the protesting farmers for discussions. In the sixth round of talks that took place a few days back, the government agreed to a few of their demands and made a few changes for the farmers.
While yesterday, the farmers met the agriculture minister for discussions on the farm laws. Though the 7th round of talks between protesting farmers and 3 ministers failed to find a solution in the over-a-month deadlock on recent farm legislation. But the government decided to meet again on the 8 January.
The three ministers who came forward to solve the farmer’s issue were the Agri Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, Railways, Commerce and Food Minister Piyush Goyal and Minister of State for Commerce Som Parkash, who is an MP from Punjab. The talks were held with the forty representatives of the farmers at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi.
The meeting started by paying homage to the farmers who lost their lives during the ongoing protest at Singhu border.
The government made efforts to explain the benefits of the farm laws “point-wise” and “intends” to change farm laws, Bhartiya Kisan Union’s Yudhvir Singh said. The farmers, however, have opposed the government’s plan to amend farm laws and will never consider it as they want the agricultural reform “complete rollback”
Tomar said the talks between the Centre-farmers struggled to find a “consensus” as the farmers remained adamant about the abolition of the farm laws. However, Tomar said he was sure that the stalemate between the protesting farmers’ unions and the central government would soon come to an end and an agreement would be reached at the next meeting on 8 January.
“We needed to address the three farm laws clause-wise with farmers unions. However, we were unable to reach a consensus as farmer union remained adamant on the repeal of the farm laws. We are hopeful that we can find a solution in the next meeting on January 8,”
The government enacted these laws in September 2020 as major farm reforms aimed at raising the income of farmers, but the protesting farmers have raised fears that these laws would disrupt the MSP and “mandi” (wholesale market) structures and leave them at the mercy of large corporations.
The state has maintained that these fears are misplaced and ruled out r
