The toil of thousands of farmers in Maharashtra, marched from Nashik to Mumbai with a list of their demands finally ended on a positive note on Monday, with the state government, agreeing to most of their demands. The Devendra Fadnavis led Maharashtra government gave specific commitments on two of their demands and assured the farmers in writing that the rest would be looked into by committees, his government would constitute.
The decision was announced at Azad Maidan in Mumbai after three senior ministers of the state government met farmer leaders accepting their demands. Maharashtra Revenue Minister Chandrakant Patil said, “I am happy to announce that almost all of your demands have been met and they will be implemented in a time bound manner”.
A high level committee has been designated to be set up with two representatives from Akhil Bhartiya Kisan Sabha to look into problems of loan waiver to farmers and adivasis and other plights of farmers and tribals.
Earlier, CM Devendra Fadnavis said his government was ready and open to talks with the farmers’ representative wings with a sincere willing to ponder over all the demands put forth by farmers and tribals.
Among the bunch of demands were prominently the demands of complete loan waiver, right to forest land, an overhaul of the river linking scheme, keeping in mind the tribal villages and the implementation of recommendations made by Swaminathan Committee report that asserts the farmers should be paid one and half times the cost of production.
The government of Maharashtra has made special trains’ arrangements to take the farmers back home after the agitation was called off ostensibly in a move to console and convince the farmers that the government has care for them.
If we analyse the impact of agitation, it goes without saying that the protest march of farmers was a collective indication of surging sentiments for their rights.
Well to quote here Anna Hazare, who said, “Only promising to fulfill the demands won’t work but one has to work on war urgency to make demands turning into reality”. Anna emphatically said that the government should think about the welfare of farmers so that they don’t have to take it to the road next time.
