Noida: Scores of farmers from over 80 villages blocked the Noida-Delhi Chilla border on Thursday to demonstrate against the Noida Authority over their pending demands. Traffic was briefly disrupted before police could pacify them.
The farmers had been staging an indefinite protest for nearly past six months over a slew of issues, including their demand for increased compensation for their land acquired by the state government. On Thursday, the protesters, including women, elderly people and children started marching towards the Noida-Delhi border and staged a sit-in at the main road connecting Noida and Delhi at chilla border.
While the traffic was completely halted for almost one hour in the afternoon, police swung into action. The Noida Traffic Police said that there was no major traffic disruption and the bottleneck was cleared eventually. "Traffic movement was disrupted for sometime but police teams managed to clear the traffic after talks with the farmers," said a senior traffic police officer.
The protest was led by the Bharatiya Kisan Parishad under the leadership of Sukhweer Pehelwan alias Sukhweer Khalifa. The farmers went back to protest site near the Noida Authority office in Sector 6. "Even after multiple rounds of talk between the farmers and Noida Authority officials, none of our demands have been met. Senior officials are not coming for discussion and they do not fulfil their promises made in the meetings," said Pehelwan.
Pehalwan said farmers want allotment of 10 per cent plots in urban area of Noida and 64 per cent extra compensation for their land that was acquired by the authorities for the development of 1,000 square metres residential plot, and changes in building regulations in villages among others.
They are also demanding the scrapping of the implementation of a new map policy in the rural areas stating that it would make their livelihood difficult amid the new construction activities in the village. The farmers have also demanded the registration of homes in the rural areas in their names.