Farmers' unions in Punjab again to go on agitation from Nov 4

Several farmers' unions in Punjab will again take to agitation from November 4, in the second phase of the stir whose earlier version had caused a huge economic loss to the state and crippled train services.
Rallies and dharnas would be staged in front of district administrative complexes in Amritsar and Moga from November 4 to 6, BKU (Ekta) general secretaries Joginder Singh and Sukhdev Singh said here.
The two leaders held a meeting with the activists of eight farmers' unions, they said.
They alleged that the Punjab government is not serious regarding farmers' demands for which their organizations had organised seven-day 'Rail Roko' stir from October 7.

The leaders declared that if the state government failed to concede their demands, the farmers' unions would hold a meeting on November 7 to chalk out the next course of action.
The farmers are demanding Rs 40,000 per acre compensation for damage caused to cotton crop due to the white fly pest attack.

Other demands include Rs 20,000 compensation to farm labourers, Rs 5 lakh compensation to the families of farmers who committed suicide and clearance of sugar mills due, they said.
The last phase of the agitation had badly hit rail movement in Punjab with over 1,200 trains being affected, causing inconvenience to the passengers and an estimated loss of about Rs 150 crore to the railways. The trains affected included several long-distance ones.

During that agitation, Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal had held talks with the protesting farmers' leaders but it failed to break the resolve the matter.
The BKU leaders had hit out at Badal for expressing "inability" to raise the quantum of compensation for cotton crop loss and basmati prices.