Govt reaches out as farm stir call clogs parts of E Delhi, NCR

Commuters travelling between Delhi, Noida and Ghaziabad were rooted in their spots for hours on Thursday after a protest by a clutch of farmers' groups brought traffic to a standstill on either side of the Capital's eastern border for the majority of the day The agitation was finally called off at 6pm, following assurances from the Uttar Pradesh government and Noida authority, which said they would form a panel to address the farmers' demands.

- Vinod Rajput and Karn Pratap Singh

The chaos on Thursday came even as Union ministers Piyush Goyal, Arjun Munda and Nityanand Rai flew into Chandigarh, five days before farmers groups in Punjab and Haryana were slated to kick off a march towards Delhi off their own, seeking minimum support prices (MSP) on crops and farm loan waivers.

Agitators in Noida were demanding hiked compensation and developed plots against land that the Centre acquired from them over the past 40 years to develop the township, a protest that simmered on sporadically in the Uttar Pradesh city for nearly two months, but snowballed on Thursday.

The protests began at 12pm, stretching travel times for people heading towards Delhi from the two satellite cities as well as for those moving between the city's eastern and central parts as farmers headed towards Parliament from Noida and Greater Noida.

However, they were stopped at Delhi-Noida border points at the Mahamaya Flyover, Dalit Prerna Sthal, and Chilla border by columns of police personnel around 1pm. Protesting farmers, however, stayed put at the border throughout and early into the evening.

"We wanted to inform the state and central governments that the Noida authority has not been addressing our demands. We had to end the protest because the police stopped us on the Delhi-Noida link road," said Rinku Singh a farmer from Nagli Wazidpur village at the site.

Noida Authority CEO Lokesh M said, "We are looking into farmer's issues and resolving them."

The protests brought back memories, even if briefly, of the year-long farmers' agitation between November 2020 and December 2021, when agricultural workers agitating against the Centre's three farm laws camped at Delhi's borders in Singhu, Ghazipur and Tikri. The demonstrators had back then called off their agitation weeks after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that his government would abandon the contentious laws. Parliament repealed them on November 29, 2021.