BKS yards suffer setback

RAJKOT, Nov 24: The marketing yards, backed by Bharatiya Kishan Sangh, suffered a jolt of sorts with the Gondal yard announcing to pull out ...

RAJKOT, Nov 24: The marketing yards, backed by Bharatiya Kishan Sangh, suffered a jolt of sorts with the Gondal yard announcing to pull out as the strike against the restrictions on the inter-state movement of groundnut and oil entered the second day on Tuesday.

The Gondal yard chairman said he had asked the yard to resume trading in groundnut tomorrow. However, the brokers’ association was yet to react to the fiat, a report said.

And district co-operatives registrar M B Pandya warned the yards against `arbitrary suspension of auction’ and asked them to provide all facilities to farmers or growers to sell their produce.

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Reacting to the directive, Rajkot marketing yard chairman Shamjibhai Khunt claimed the yard was yet to receive the order, though he said some yards had received it, and produced a copy of the order faxed to the Jasdan yard.

“The order was issued only to threaten the farmers who were fighting for justice and reasonable demand”, Khunt said. The farmers could not be cowed down by such letters and “we are prepared to fight at two fronts if the Government wants”, he said.

Khunt claimed the strike was total on the first day and none of the 54 major yards in the region auctioned groundnut. There were not even direct deliveries to mills as village-level committees had been formed to guard against the movement of groundnut, he added.

Meanwhile, Saurashtra Kutch Khedut Vikas Parishad, formed by the agitators, has convened district-level yards presidents here tomorrow to chalk out an action plan to intensify the agitation.

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On the other hand, Government officials impounded a few oil tankers which had left for Maharashtra via Vapi/Bulsar. Official sources said that after gathering details based on documents and statements of the drivers, the oil mills involved would be raided.