Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh on Tuesday approved a higher state agreed price (SAP) for sugarcane crop – a key demand made by the state’s farmers who have been protesting since Friday. The decision was taken after Singh held a meeting with the farmer leaders.
“Conceding the demand of sugarcane farmers, Punjab CM @capt_amarinder has approved another hike of ₹35 per quintal in state agreed price (SAP) for crushing season 2021-22. The farmers will now get ₹360 per quintal – ₹2 higher than neighbouring Haryana,” Raveen Thukral, Media Advisor to Punjab CM, said on Twitter.
Earlier, the state’s agriculture department proposed a hike of upto ₹345 per quintal, which the farmer leaders rejected.
The farmers have also asked the state government to clear payment of arrears to the tune of ₹200-250 crore.
The agitation, which entered its fifth day today, led to disruption of traffic on roads and train tracks. At least 368 trains have been affected so far – 40 of them on Tuesday which had to be cancelled, short terminated or diverted.
Sharing the information about the trains being affected due to the farmers’ agitation, Northern Railways General Manager, Ashutosh Gangal said that if the main route of the double line is closed, then the railways will not have that much capacity to operate trains as per schedule. “Due to this, we have had to cancel a large number of trains. 368 trains have either been canceled or diverted or have been short terminated. Out of these 215 have been cancelled, causing inconvenience to a large number of passengers,” he added.
The above news was originally posted on www.hindustantimes.com
