Onion effect: Farmers block Hubli-Dharwad Road for four hours

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ENARADA NEWS AND WEBCAST
ENARADA, Hubli, September 20, 2013:

Photos and text by KIRAN BAKALE

Farmers today, resorted to flash protest over a sudden drop in prices of Onion at the Agriculture Produce Market Committee(APMC) yard at Amargol, situated in Hubli.

Angry farmers blocked the Hubli-Dharwad main road between 1.30pm to 5.30pm. Vehicular movement came to standstill and this unexpected protest put commuters in great difficulty.

From the protesting farmers point of view they were not trying to put any hardships to general public but they wanted to register a protest to seek justice. According to them the price of Onions which was going between INR 3000 to INR 4700 per quintal yesterday, fell so deep to INR100 to INR500 today following a ban on Exports of Onions.

This irritated the farmers who had brought Onions expecting to earn decent money.

The commotion started at around 12 noon when traders were reluctant to quote more than INR 500 even for the best quality onions owing to various reasons. But farmers were not interested to sell their crop to such a low price and started demanding yesterday’s price. Both traders and farmers were seen engaged in verbal battle.

Following the high drama auction of the Onion crop suspended for the entire day.

At this point some of the farmers decided to block the main road to draw attention of the Government and put pressure on APMC officials to intervene. At around 1.30pm enterprising farmers disrupted the vehicular movement by sitting in the middle of the road.

However after blocking the road for more than 4 hours, farmers withdrew their ‘Rasta Roko’ protest following an assurance from APMC officials that prices of Onions will be retained as earlier.

Farmers are hoping that auction which resumes tomorrow will go in their favour.

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