RSS wing BKS stages protests in Gujarat over farm produce price

Members of RSS-affiliated Bharatiya Kisan Sangh (BKS) on Wednesday staged protests across Gujarat to demand ''remunerative price'' for agricultural crops grown by farmers and highlight various issues affecting cultivators in the state.

As part of their nationwide agitation, BKS workers gathered across 33 district headquarters in the statet, where they staged sit-ins and submitted two sets of memorandums to collectors, one addressed to the Prime Minister and other to the Chief Minister, said Gujarat BKS president Vitthal Dudhatra.

He said in districts where heavy rainfall affected their programme, protesters handed over memorandums to collectors and left. In other districts like Kutch, they organised a day-long sit-in outside collector offices to press for their demands.

The BKS has been demanding profitable price to farmers for their crops over and above the cost of production and legal guarantee for the payment.

''Apart from the issue of remunerative price after calculating the cost of production that was common across the country in this nationwide programme, we also highlighted local issues affecting farmers at the district level in our memorandum to CM Vijay Rupani,'' Dudhatra said.

Re-survey of damage to standing crops due to the cyclone Tauktae in some districts, declaring talukas in some districts as drought-hit due to low rainfall, ensuring water for irrigation and removal of fixed charge on farm electricity were raised in the memorandum addressed to the CM, he said.

Other state-level matters highlighted in the memorandum included freeing farmers from vehicle scrap policy, payment of crop insurance, issues related to electricity and forest land, the BKS functionary said.

''If we do not get a satisfactory resolution to the issues raised in the two memorandums, we will think of our next strategy,'' the BKS said in a release.

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