Bills for withdrawal of the three new farm laws are likely to come up before the Union Cabinet for approval on Wednesday. The bills will then be introduced before the Parliament after it convenes for the winter session on November 29.
However farmers are sticking to their position on ending the on-going protest, linking it to fulfillment of their pending demands. They have also not relented on holding their programs scheduled over the next few days.
Leaders of the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), an umbrella body of farmer unions, met near the Singhu border in Delhi on Sunday. At the conclusion of the meeting, leaders said they will go ahead with the planned ‘mahapanchayat’ at Lucknow’s Eco Garden on Monday. Farmers will congregate at their protest sites on Delhi borders on November 26, and also hold a tractor rally to Parliament on November 29.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a televised address to the nation last Friday announced that the government will withdraw the laws that had drawn widespread protests from the farming community.
The three farm laws are- The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act that provides for setting up a mechanism allowing the farmers to sell their farm produces outside the Agriculture Produce Market Committees (APMCs). Any licence-holder trader can buy the produce from the farmers at mutually agreed prices.
This trade of farm produces will be free of mandi tax imposed by the state governments.
The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Act allows farmers to do contract farming and market their produces freely.
The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act is an amendment to the existing Essential Commodities Act.
Farmers on a sit-in protest at Delhi’s borders have set formal withdrawal of the laws via Parliamentary procedures as a condition to ending their protests.
They also want fulfillment of the other demands, like guarantee on MSP and compensation for deaths during the year-long protests.