Maha: Peasants march to collector’s office to press for demands

Over 25,000 peasants, including women, marched to the office of Palghar district collector in Maharashtra on Tuesday to press for their various demands, said the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) on Wednesday.

An AIKS delegation met the collector and submitted thousands of forms filled by peasants, mostly tribals, in connection with rights over forest land, absentee landlords’ (‘varkas’) land, temple trust land, ‘inaami’ land and pasture land, said the left-backed organisation in a release.

As per AIKS, this was the fourth “large” mobilisation of people from Thane-Palghar districts in the last three months.

The crowd stayed put on the open space at the collectorate for nearly three hours till a meeting between the AIKS delegation and Collector Govind Bodke got over.

The collector was apprised of the peasants’ demands concerning land rights, water and irrigation, rural job guarantee scheme MNREGA, ration, and other issues, and he assured help, said the release.