Ensure food security and minimum support price, demands Brinda Karat
“The demand for food security and that of minimum support price for farmers are interlinked” said Brinda Karat today, addressing a meeting at Uklana, Jind district, Haryana. Sanghash Sandesh Jatha today had a whirlwind tour starting in the morning from Kaithal, receiving delegations at different places before it reached district headquarter Fatehabad to address a huge gathering.
Impressive meetings were held at Uklana, Darasul, Bhuna and Ratia where huge numbers of agricultural workers particularly women were present. “The governments in Haryana and at Centre are designing their policies keeping in the interests of monopoly corporate and foreign capital rather than people by whom they were elected” criticised Brinda Karat.
She said “the latest move to allow FDI in retail sector is going to oust more than 5 crore families from their livelihood sources”. Remembering the legendary communist leader Pridhvi Singh who hails from Danouda area, Brinda reminded the audience about the rich legacy of struggles and sacrifices.
Referring the latest scam in implementation of farm loan waiver scheme, brought to light by the CAG, Brinda said, “the principle advisor of this whole fraud is none other than the Finance Minister”. She warned the state government which issued notices for loan recoveries to thousands of farmers in Haryana and called upon the Haryana farmers not to honour bank notices.
At Danouda, a delegation of Asha workers and MGNREGA workers met Brinda Karrat and explained their grievances to which Brinda Karat assured them that they will be taken up with the governments both at the State and Centre. She criticised the administration for asking the MGNEGA workers to discharge more than the scheduled quantum of works and also denying them minimum notified wages under the act. She demanded an inquiry into the insurance premium scam that was perpetrated in collusion with a private insurance agency and some of the officials in Haryana. The Anganwadi delegation that met Brinda Karat at Uklana briefed about how the insurance premium is perpetrated in the state.
While addressing a public gathering at Ratia, Brinda Karat demanded the state to make public the survey conducted by the state government on 8000 people. “Due to pollution of ground water with chemicals and other pollutants, 1800 hundred people are affected by Hepatitis C. The affected people are into deep debt spiral due to the cost of treatment. As Haryana does not have any facilities for the treatment of such deceases, all the affected families have to go to Delhi for the treatment.” She demanded the state government to announce a comprehensive policy for the rehabilitation of the affected people.
Hannan Mollah, Inderjeet Singh, Harpal Singh, Ramkumar and others also spoke at different places.
