Ambassa(Tripura), Hundreds of farmers like Anu Mia, Ramadhar Pashi, Laxman Pashi and Achir Mia having their fields outside the barbed wire border fencing ultimately heaved a great sigh of relief as some sort of financial assistance started to flow into their bank accounts to redress their loss as they could not harvest their crops during lock down 1 due to closure of border gates.
During the lock down, in order to combat the first wave of COVID pandemic in 2020, the Union government imposed complete closure on Indo-Bangla border. As a result, the farmers lost their access to their lands outside the barbed wire border fencing. One such farmer Anu Mia said, “The period was to harvest ripe crop. But as the border was closed we couldn’t harvest. And our ripe Boro paddy was looted by Bangladeshi goons in broad daylight in front of our eyes. Rest was destroyed by monsoon flood”.
Other farmers also admitted the fact and informed that in total 141 farmers were affected at that time. Those 141 families have only these patches of land outside the barbed wire fencing and naturally the impact crushed them heavily. Laxman Pashi said, “We were in complete hopelessness. Then Kisan Morcha (BJKM) Mandal President came forward. He arranged for a visit of the affected site with Minister Manoj Kanti Deb and high officials from Agriculture Department as well as BJKM Tripura President Jawahar Saha”. After that visit Pintu communicated the whole saga in writing to the concerned Minister, Tripura Chief Minister and Union Minister for Agriculture. As a result a sum of 8,74,400 rupees was sanctioned recently to compensate the 141 farmers on the basis of their quantity of land.
And the amount started to be disbursed in the respective bank accounts.
The smile on the faces of the peasantry unveiled the reward of the initiative of BJKM, according to the local people.
(Agencies)
