Farmers protest at Yamuna Expressway

Greater Noida: Farmers today organised a ‘panchayat’ on the Yamuna Expressway and stopped booth officials from collecting toll for an hour to protest the “anti-farmer policies” of the government in Uttar Pradesh and at the Centre.

The farmers were organising the protest under the banner of Bhartiya Kisan Union Lokshakti. The hour-long protest was suspended after senior administrative officers visited them on the expressway. SDM Rajpal Singh and DSP Jagat Ram Joshi pacified the farmers at Jewar toll plaza.

Farmers gave a list of their 20-point demands – addressed to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath – to tehsildar Abhay Kumar. “The anti-farmer policies of the state government and the Centre has put farmers under additional burden and stress,” the group’s national president Sheoraj Singh said.

“We have demanded land compensation at four times the market rate and job to one family member of the farmer whose land is acquired,” he said.