The All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) on Friday demanded that the Naveen Patnaik government withdraw the ordinance allowing contract-farming.
The ordinance is anti-people and anti-farmer, and contract-farming will ruin the livelihood of lakhs of small and marginal farmers, said Suresh Panigrahy, Odisha secretary of the AIKS, which is affiliated to the Communist Party of India (Marxist). “The COVID-19 pandemic cannot be an excuse for pushing through the pro-corporate agenda,” he said.
Under the ordinance, farmers and their sponsors could develop mutually beneficial and efficient contract-farming system. It says the new system will lead to improved production and marketing.
Meanwhile, unions staged a protest against tne extension of working hours at factories from 8 to 12, “promotion” of multinational companies in the name of self-reliance and amalgamation of 44 labour laws into four codes. They demanded that those who lost their jobs be given ₹10000 in monthly allowance for at least three months, 10 kg of grain be given for six months to every one, irrespective of their coverage under the National Food Security Act, and all be included in the universal public distribution system.
