HOPEFUL OF POSITIVE TALKS WITH FARMERS, SAYS TOMAR

NEW DELHI: The government’s ninth round of negotiations with protesting farmer unions will take place as scheduled on Friday and the Centre is hopeful of positive discussions, agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar said on Thursday.

Clearing the confusion over the fate of the ninth round of talks between the Centre and farmer unions — which was the only outcome in the last meeting on January 8 — in the wake of the Supreme Court January 11 order appointing a four-member panel to resolve the impasse and a key member of the proposed committee subsequently recusing himself, Tomar said the talks will take place as scheduled for 12 pm on January 15.

“The government is ready to hold talks with farmers’ leaders with an open mind,” Tomar told reporters.

The farmer unions have been maintaining that they were ready to attend the scheduled talks with the government, even as they have said they do not want to appear before the courtappointed panel and have also questioned its composition.

Farmer unions and opposition parties had called it a “progovernment” panel, insisting that its members have been in

favour of the three laws in the past.

Thousands of farmers, mainly from Punjab, Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh, have been camping at the border of Delhi for several weeks, demanding the repeal of the laws they say will lead to the weakening of the minimum support price (MSP) system.

The three contentious laws are the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020, the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020 and the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020.