Even as the Supreme Court is all set to hear the pleas relating to the controversial farm laws on Monday, Union agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar said that most of the farmers in the country are in favour of the three laws. The minister also reiterated that the government is ready to bring amendments to the laws.
“When the government enacts the law, it is for the whole country. Most of the farmers, scholars, scientists, and people working in the agriculture sector agree with these laws," news agency ANI quoted Tomar as saying.
He said the government has sent a proposal to the protesting farmers in which it had agreed to address their apprehensions regarding mandis, traders' registration and other things.
“The government has also agreed to discuss laws on stubble burning and electricity but unions only want the repeal of the laws," Tomar told ANI.
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The Supreme Court, in an interim order on January 12, had stayed the implementation of the new farm laws till further orders and had constituted a four-member panel to listen to the grievances and make recommendations to resolve the impasse.
The court's efforts seem to have hit a hurdle as Bhupinder Singh Mann, national president of Bhartiya Kisan Union and one of the members of the panel, recused himself from the committee on January 14.
"If the Supreme Court has stayed the implementation of laws, then I think the question of repealing ends,” Tomar said.
The tenth round of talks between the agitating farmers and a group of Union ministers will take place on January 19. The previous nine rounds of negotiations had failed to end the deadlock with the protesting farmers insisting that they would not settle for anything less than the repeal of new agriculture laws.
Tomar said that the government expects the farmers to discuss the laws clause by clause on January 19 and give options about what amendments can be brought to the laws other than repealing them.
Thousands of farmers, mainly from Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, are protesting at various border points of Delhi for over a month now against the three laws—the Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, and the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act.
Enacted in September 2020, these laws have been presented by the government as a major reform in the farm sector aimed at increasing farmers' income, but the protesting farmers have raised concerns that these legislations would weaken the minimum support price (MSP) and “mandi” (wholesale market) systems and leave them at the mercy of big corporations.
The government has maintained that these apprehensions are misplaced and has ruled out a repeal of the laws.
