Union ministers hold 4th round of talks with farmers

A panel of Union ministers began the fourth round of talks with farmer leaders in Chandigarh on Sunday evening over their demands, including a legal guarantee of minimum support price (MSP) for crops.

Agriculture and Farmer Welfare Minister Arjun Munda, Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal and Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai reached the Mahatma Gandhi State Institute of Public Administration in Sector 26 for the talks.

Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann also joined the meeting.

The Union ministers and farmer leaders had met earlier on February 8, 12 and 15 but the talks remained inconclusive.

The meeting comes amid thousands of farmers from Punjab staying put at the Shambhu and Khanauri points of the state's border with Haryana after their 'Delhi Chalo' march was halted by police personnel.

The call for the march was given by the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (Non-Political) and the Kisan Mazdoor Morcha to press their demands.

Besides a legal guarantee of MSP, the farmers are demanding the implementation of the Swaminathan Commission's recommendations, pension for farmers and farm labourers, farm debt waiver, no hike in electricity tariff, withdrawal of police cases and "justice" for the victims of the 2021 Lakhimpur Kheri violence, reinstatement of the Land Acquisition Act, 2013, and compensation to the families of the farmers who died during a previous agitation in 2020-21.