Ahead of wheat harvesting season: Dalits gather to address concerns over auction of Panchayati land

At the mahapanchayat on Tuesday. Express

AHEAD of the annual auction of panchayati land, a Dalit mahapanchayat was held in Kheri Sahib village in Sangrur in which Dalits gathered to discuss the annual auction of land. In the meeting, they demanded scraping of e-auction of panchayati land, which they feel will not be transparent. Till last year, manual auction was being conducted across the state.

Mukesh Malaud, president of Zamin Prapati Sangrash Committee (ZPSC) said, “Earlier, we had been protesting against the SAD-BJP alliance and now we have gathered so that Congress government don’t flout any norms while conducting the auction. In Sangrur alone, there is about 10,000 acres of land which is meant for Dalit peasants, but in 2017-18, Dalits got only 4,000 bighas (i.e1000 acres). Hence, one can easily imagine what is the position across the state.”

Gurmukh Singh, Secretary of ZPSC said,”We got land at an average rate of Rs 20,000 per acre in the last financial year for wheat and paddy farming and now our demand is to give land to Dalit farmers on 99 years of lease.” Gurmukh further said, “Now the present state government has plans to set up an industrial park on Sagrur’s panchayati land which shows their seriousness towards land for farming purposes for Dalits. Earlier, Congress leaders used to support us in dharnas and now they are busy in setting up industrial parks on panchayati land.”

Echoing similar views, Vinay Partap Singh of Bhim Army also condemned the decision of the Punjab government to set up an industrial park in Sangrur over panchayati land.