Kusum Arora 
Jalandhar: Four days after Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann assured the lifting of paddy from the state’s grain markets, farmers from various unions have alleged the poor lifting of the crop and on Monday (October 21) began an indefinite blockade of parts of an arterial highway.
Farmers primarily from Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur, Kapurthala, Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar and Ludhiana districts on Tuesday blocked part of the Grand Trunk Road in the state’s Phagwara town and demanded the immediate lifting of their crop, which they said had been lying in grain markets for since October 1, when paddy procurement began in Punjab.
The Bharatiya Kisan Union or BKU (Doaba), the Kisan Mazdoor Morcha (KMM) – which led the farmers’ protest for legally guaranteed minimum support prices (MSPs) at the Shambhu border between Punjab and Haryana earlier this year – the Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee (KSMC) and the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) have supported the call to block the highway.
The protest left commuters travelling from Jalandhar and Ludhiana toward Delhi stranded on the highway for hours.
“We have called a meeting of all farmers’ unions tomorrow (October 23) at the Shambhu border to decide the next course of action,” Sarwan Pandher, who leads the KSMC and the KMM, told The Wire.
Farmers accuse the Mann-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government in Punjab as well as the BJP-led Union government of pushing the state into an agrarian and economic crisis.
A lack of storage space in godowns of the Food Corporation of India (FCI) has meant that rice millers have been unable to dispose of milled rice from last year, which has in turn made them unwilling to take on paddy from the state’s grain markets.
The state’s farmers are also concerned that delays in selling their paddy will in turn create delays in their sowing the wheat crop in the first week of November.
Trolleys have been parked along the highway in protest. Photo: Kusum Arora.
‘Punjab, Union governments left farmers with no choice’
Speaking to The Wire, BKU (Doaba) president Manjit Singh Rai said that as of Tuesday it had been 22 days since paddy procurement began but that tonnes of produce still lay dumped at farmers’ homes and in grain markets.
“We want to warn the AAP and BJP governments that if our crop is not lifted, we will block all of Punjab in two days,” Rai said.
He added: “Mann had promised to the SKM’s delegation that the paddy would be lifted within two days. We waited for two days and after noticing no action on the ground, have blocked the highway indefinitely. Farmers are shocked by the AAP government’s poor response. On the other hand, the BJP-led Union government has been giving stepmotherly treatment to Punjab. We will continue our protest until the paddy is lifted and farmers get their due.”
On October 19, a delegation led by SKM leader Balbir Singh Rajewal announced that they would stop their dharna outside Mann’s residence, which they began a day earlier, after Mann assured them that the lifting of paddy would begin within two days.
Rai also said he was aware of commuters facing problems because of the blockade, but reasoned that the AAP and Modi governments had left farmers with no choice.
“October is coming to an end. By now, paddy should have been lifted in the Doaba and Majha regions of Punjab. The Malwa region is next in line, where the lifting of paddy has just begun. Even as the basmati harvest is set to begin once the paddy is harvested, there is no solution in sight.”
Pandher targets Arvind Kejriwal over silence
Pandher while speaking to The Wire targeted AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal for his silence over Punjab’s paddy crisis. He said that many farmers had always said that Kejriwal was hand in glove with the BJP-led Union government and with the saffron party’s ideological parent, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
“We stand vindicated now. Kejriwal has proved that he is wearing khaki shorts [a reference to the Sangh’s dress code] and putting Punjab’s farmers in distress. Since Kejriwal is [the AAP leader] and has been running Punjab from Delhi, why is he silent now? He should speak up. In such a fiasco, either Mann should have rushed to Delhi and staged a protest for farmers’ sake, or Kejriwal should have come to Punjab. But both are missing in action,” he said.
Pandher also lashed out at the Modi government, accusing it of indirectly imposing the three repealed farm laws – which were taken back after months of protests in 2020 and 2021 – on farmers.
“We have been warning the Punjab and the Union governments that the root of law and order problems in Punjab has been agrarian crises. All farmer unions are together in this hour of crisis, and we will not let the Union government damage Punjab’s agrarian economy,” Pandher asserted.
BKU Doaba president Rai during the protest on Monday. Photo: Kusum Arora.
AAP MLAs, MPs criticised; farmers say they are suffering losses
Harjinder Singh, a farmer and arhtiya (commission agent) based in Jalandhar’s Phillaur, accused government officials of not lifting a variety of rice that the chief minister himself promoted.
“Punjab government officials told us that they would not lift rice of the PR 126 variety. The paddy procurement season is coming to an end, but only 20% of the crop has been lifted from grain markets. Mann should now tell us why the PR 126 variety, which he aggressively promoted, is not being lifted now,” he said.
Harjinder also said that while arhtiyas and millers rallied for the smooth procurement of paddy two months before harvesting season began, no local AAP MLAs or MPs met them. “The stakeholders could see the imminent crisis, but the AAP government failed to do anything,” he charged.
Navdeep Singh, another farmer, said that farmers were forced to sell their crop at distress prices as it was starting to weigh less from losing its moisture due to having lied in grain markets for many days.
He said farmers were being forced to bear losses worth five to ten kilograms. “Paddy’s MSP has been fixed at Rs 2,320 per quintal, but farmers are facing a loss of around Rs 100 per quintal at the hands of arhtiyas. Who will compensate for our loss?” he asked.
The farmer argued that the main problem was not PR 126 but of hybrid varieties that were sold by private companies at exorbitant prices.
“Was it not the Punjab government’s responsibility to check what kind of seed was being sold in the market? Had the AAP government kept a check over this malpractice, farmers would not have faced such a setback. Leave everything aside – the AAP government did not even inquire about the wellbeing of the farmers,” he said.
Notably, the Punjab Agricultural University-certified paddy seeds are sold at Rs 58 per kilogram, while hybrid seeds were sold at between Rs 300 and Rs 400 per kilogram by private companies.
Arhtiyas support protest
Speaking to The Wire, Arhtiya Association Punjab president Ravinder Singh Cheema said they had given four days to the Punjab government to start lifting paddy in the state but that this time had passed as of Tuesday. Rice millers were scheduled to meet the Union government on Tuesday, he also said.
Cheema said that farmers, arhtiyas and rice millers were holding protests at around 25 or 30 locations in Punjab. “Other than the [blockade] call given by farmers’ unions, it is a purely organic protest. Farmers are joining the protests on their own,” he said.
He said that even though Union minister of state for food processing Ravneet Singh Bittu assured that 212 freight trains would move paddy out of Punjab, there was no action on the ground.
“It is such a mess and none of the local AAP MLAs or ministers have visited grain markets to take stock of the crisis. Even deputy commissioners avoided any direct meeting with the farmers,” he alleged.
“Farmers, arhtiyas and rice shellers all are feeling left out in the cold. It is we, the stakeholders, who are running from pillar to post to ensure the smooth lifting of paddy,” he said.
Mann orders lifting of paddy on war footing
Mann on Monday chaired a meeting to review the procurement of paddy and directed officials to lift paddy on a war footing. Farmers should not be allowed to face any inconvenience at grain markets, he said.
Claiming that the Punjab government was committed to protecting farmers’ interests, the chief minister said that the distress sale of paddy in grain markets would not be allowed and that severe action will be taken against officers found responsible for it.
He also said that 2,651 grain markets had been set up across the state for the smooth procurement of paddy. Cash credit limits to the tune of Rs 41,378 crore for the 2024-25 kharif milling season had already been released by the RBI, and farmers were being issued payments on time, Mann added.
Mann then said that grain markets in the state recorded the arrival of 24.88 lakh metric tonnes of paddy so far, of which 22.22 tonnes had been procured. The food and civil supplies department had cleared Rs 4,027 crores for payments to the farmers, he said.
SKM questions budgetary cuts in food, fertiliser subsidies
Expressing concern over Punjab’s paddy crisis, the SKM alleged that it stemmed from the pro-corporate Union budgets aimed at dismantling the agricultural produce market committee (APMC) system, the public distribution system, MSPs and the FCI in one stroke.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, the SKM’s leadership accused both the Mann government and the Union government for derailing paddy procurement in Punjab.
It highlighted that in the actual expenditure in 2022-23, the food subsidy was Rs 2,72,802 crore. In the revised estimates for 2023-24, the expenditure made was only Rs 2,12,332 crore, which was less than the 2022-23 actuals by Rs 60,470 crore.
In the 2024-25 budget, the subsidy is estimated at Rs 2,05,250 crore, which means a further reduction by Rs 7,082 crore.
Similarly, the fertilizer subsidy also has been slashed substantially, the SKM said. In the actual expenditure in 2022-23, the fertiliser subsidy was Rs 2,51,339 crore and in the revised estimates for 2023-24, the expenditure made was only Rs 1 88,894 crore – short by Rs 62,445 crore.
As per the 2024-25 budget estimate, the fertiliser subsidy is Rs 1,64,000 crore, which means a further reduction by Rs 24,894 crore.
On the lack of storage capacity in the FCI, SKM leaders said that the Union government dismantled the Central Warehousing Corporation, resulting in a large-scale reduction in storage facilities in the public sector.
“The FCI has also rented out its storage facilities to the corporate sector and to companies including the Adanis and the Ambanis,” they alleged.
The SKM warned both the Punjab and the Union governments that derailed paddy procurement will create unrest among farmers and frustrate all sections of society that had anything to do with the APMC system of procurement.
“We want to appeal to the farmers and workers across the country to stand in solidarity with the farmers of Punjab and Haryana in the path of struggle and protect the APMC system and the food security of the country,” its statement read.