Shimla: There was a sudden spurt in protests all over the hill town on Monday when the left mass organisations including the Kisan Sabha, CITU and Citizens Forum raised various issues and staged aggressive demonstrations.
The Kisan Sabha activists even blocked the national highway in Dhalli when the commission agents and middlemen in the main fruit and vegetable market refused to accept the produce brought by small and marginal farmers from all over the place.
Hundreds of sacks of vegetables including French beans, Cauliflower, Cabbage, Potatoes and Peas remained abandoned on the roads when the wholesalers refused to buy them as pressure tactics on the farmers.
The farmers led by the Kisan Sabha are struggling against the illegal and unwanted cuts and conditions imposed by the Commissions Agents (Artiyas) on the cash crops and produce brought by the farmers to the Market (Mandis).
The Government controlled APMC (Agriculture Produce Marketing Corporation) after the consistent struggle and pressure of the farmers have even issued infringement notices to some of the Agents but they have ignored the directions and still making the undue cuts on the produce brought by the small peasants, alleged the Kisan Sabha leader Jai Shiv Thakur.
The farmers after submitting a memorandum to the Chief Minister and Principal Secretary Agriculture demanded that the government should plan to sell the produce of poor farmers through the official agencies of HPMC and Himfed and stop the exploitation of farmers by the outside middlemen.
The members of Shimla Nagrik Sabha (Citizens Forum) staged a demonstration right on the Mall Road and outside the Shimla Municipal Corporation office against the indifferent and apathetic attitude of the MC in controlling the population of monkeys, stray dogs and langurs in the town.
These wild simians and animals are attacking the children and old people in the town and numbers of them have even been admitted in various hospitals. The forest department has claimed to have just killed a nutty langur after he had bit more than a dozen people last week.
Because of poor garbage disposal by the MC the wild apes have come from the adjoining forests to the towns and have become aggressive.
The rate of sterilisation project undertaken by the government is so slow that it would take at least seven to eight decades to cover the present population of around 4 lakh monkeys in the hill State, said Ranjeev Kuthiyala of the Citizens Forum.
On the other hand hundreds of Anganwari women workers under the banner of CITU marched to the State Secretariat and demanded an increase in their honorarium and some permanency and security in their jobs, said CITU State Secretary Kashmir Thakur.
KY Singh is a political observer and a senior journalist with an interest in a diverse set of issues related to Himachal Pradesh and other mountain states. He lives in Shimla.
Thanks to Anna!! Civil society in My Himachal is waking up..
But unfortunately the people in Himachal are still not coming out in open and surprisingly voting for the traditional parties only instead of the parties like the Left, who are raising peoples’ related issues. There was no trace at all of Anna like supporters in all these three major protests yesterday and they were all Left motivated and organised protests. There were no candle burning and Gandhi Topi protesters but real hard farmers, mid day meal, anganwari workers and people suffered from dog and monkey bites.