Chandigarh, 2 March —Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann has invited Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) representatives for a meeting on March 3 to discuss their demands, farmer leaders said Saturday. The talks at Punjab Bhavan come just days before SKM’s planned week-long sit-in protest in Chandigarh starting March 5.
The SKM, which spearheaded the 2020 protest against now-repealed farm laws, is demanding the rejection of the Centre’s draft National Policy Framework on Agricultural Marketing and a legal guarantee for Minimum Support Price (MSP) based on the Swaminathan Commission report.
Other key issues include implementing Punjab’s agricultural policy, state procurement of six crops—basmati, maize, moong, and potato among them—at MSP, a law for debt settlement, canal water access for all farms, and clearing sugarcane arrears.
The farmers are also calling for an end to “forcible” land acquisition under the Bharatmala project and a resolution against the National Education Policy (NEP).
