Farmers' protest: Govt ready to resume talks, says Piyush Goyal

New Delhi: Union Minister Piyush Goyal on Sunday said the government is ready to resume talks with the farmers protesting the new farm laws but asserted that despite repeated proposals, the protesters have not come up with any "concrete suggestion" so far.

Reiterating Prime Minister Narendra Modi's appeal to farmer unions that the government was "just a phone away" to discuss any issues raised by them, Goyal said "but for that somebody at least has to make call so that we can move forward."

"This government is sensitive towards farmers' issues. The PM and the government is ready to discuss it with them. The PM even said he was just a phone call away, but somebody at least has to call so that we can move forward," the minister said during a press conference here. He added that the farmers were being misled on a few issues and some people have been successful at confusing them.

"We even proposed to make the laws stricter through change of wordings, we proposed to suspend the laws for 18 months. We keep reading in news 'tareekh par tareekh' (date after date) but it should be 'prastav par prastav' (proposal after proposal). But we are yet to hear a concrete suggestion from the farmers," said Goyal, who is also the minister of Railways and Commerce and Industry.

The government has held 11 rounds of talks with farmer leaders, the last one being held on January 22 before the tractor parade on January 26 which ended in violent clashes between the police and the protestors.