Farmers and labourers under the banner of the Kisan Mazdoor Morcha (KMM) submitted memorandums at the deputy commissioner (DC) offices across the state, demanding the Punjab government “repeal its ambitious land pooling policy”.
Addressing the media, KMM coordinator Sarwan Singh Pandher said, “Following the central government’s model, the state government is trying to benefit corporate interests by dreaming of building concrete cities and urban jungles over Punjab’s fertile land, a move that will be firmly resisted.”
Questioning the government’s “intention,” Pandher said, “There is no data on demand for housing colonies, yet Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann-led state government, under pressure from Delhi-based lobbies, is aggressively pursuing a policy that threatens to displace entire villages.”
“Government representatives cite examples from Dubai and other countries, but those nations built structures on barren land, and not on fertile lands that produce three to four crops a year,” Pandher said.
Pandher emphasised that the policy “isn’t just harmful to farmers, but it would also affect farm labourers, small shopkeepers, commission agents (arhtiyas), and middle-class traders”.
Terming the government’s claim that “land won’t be forcibly acquired false, Pandher read out a clause in the policy, purportedly reading “if landowners on both sides of a plot agree to pooling, the landowner in between could lose his land even without consent under the 2013 Land Acquisition Act”.
Criticising the “cost-sharing clause” in the land pooling policy, Pandher said, “The policy mandates landowners to bear 60 per cent of the development cost, while the development authority pays 40 per cent.”
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Referring to Cabinet Minister for Revenue, Rehabilitation and Disaster Management, Water Supply & Sanitation and Housing and Urban Development Hardeep Mundian’s remarks that “land with bank loans will have the debt transferred to the allotted plots,” Pandher questioned, “If the farmer no longer owns cultivable land, how will they repay those loans?”
The KMM coordinator accused the government of “trying to grab land under the guise of generous offers like Rs 1 lakh annual lease payments”, calling it “unrealistic”.
“How will a government struggling financially afford Rs 650 crore annually for 65,000 acres?” he asked.
Referring to the statements of the Punjab CM and other Cabinet ministers that the Opposition was “misleading farmers,” Pandher said, “We are not illiterates…the time has changed now and everyone can read the policy and understand its pros and cons… farmers know what is good or bad for them. Rather, the government is misleading the public.”
Pandher also questioned the August 4 deadline provided to landowners to file objections, and warned, “There is no clear recourse whether the farmers’ objections will be rejected during the hearings.”
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Calling upon the farmer and labourer organisations in Punjab to set aside differences and fight the land pooling policy unitedly, Pandher announced full support for the Samyukta Kisan Morcha’s (SKM) tractor march on July 30, and appealed to the public to actively support all such united efforts.
BKU (Krantikari) president Surjit Singh Phool said, “The promise of ‘affordable housing’ is hollow. At the current government rate, a five marla plot will cost Rs 45 to Rs 50 lakh, making it unaffordable even for the middle class. So, who will buy plots in these government-developed colonies? The real motive behind the policy is to seize land and lease it to corporate houses for large-scale corporate farming on the pretext of urban development. That’s why the policy targets highly fertile land close to highways.”
BKU (Azad) president Jaswinder Singh Longowal said, “Thousands of colonies already exist around New Chandigarh, Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Amritsar, Mohali and Phagwara. Why don’t the government regularise those colonies first instead of setting up new colonies?”
Leaders who submitted the memorandums at various locations are Sukhwinder Singh Sabhra (Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee), Omkar Singh Bhangala (Kisan Mazdoor Hitkari Sabha), Malkeet Singh Gulamiwala (Kisan Mazdoor Morcha, Punjab), Dilbag Singh Gill (Bhartiya Kisan Mazdoor Union), Manjeet Singh Rai (BKU, Doaba), Jang Singh Bhateri (BKU, Bhateri), Balwant Singh Behramke and Guramneet Singh Mangat (BKU, Behramke), and several others.
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The major demands in the memorandums included, among others, compensation for property and items lost during the forced dismantling of protest sites at the Shambhu and Khanauri borders; complete waiver of farmers’ and labourers’ loans; the passage of a Minimum Support Price (MSP) Guarantee Act in the Punjab Assembly and pressing the central government to implement it and few other demands.
