Farmers' Protest: Centre-farmers to hold tenth round of talks today

New Delhi, Jan 20: The tenth round of talks between the central government and farmers will take place on Wednesday at 2 pm in Delhi. The talks were earlier slated for Tuesday, but the Agriculture Ministry delayed it by a day.

Sanjay Agarwal, Secretary, Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare said the scheduled meeting of a Group of Ministers with agitating farmer organisations for January 19 has been postponed to January 20 due to some unavoidable reasons.

Though the Supreme Court has stayed the implementation of these laws and set up an expert committee to resolve the issue, the Centre has kept open the channel of dialogue with the farmers' unions.

Meanwhile, Agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar has expressed hope that farmers will discuss alternatives other than repeal of the laws.

"I am hoprful that farmers will discuss alternatives so that we can reach a solution," Tomar had said while making an appeal to the farmers not to go ahead with their proposed tractor rally on Republic Day in the national capital.

The previous nine rounds of formal talks between the Centre and 41 farmer unions have failed to yield any concrete results to end the long-running protest at Delhi's borders as the latter have stuck to their main demand of a complete repeal of the three acts.

Besides being adamant on repealing the three Union farm laws, farmers are also demanding a legal guarantee for procurement of crops at the Minimum Support Price.