Farmers Protest Electricity Meters; Clashes in Rajasthan

Farmers from Bharatiya Kisan Mazdoor Union (Panjab), and Bharatiya Kisan Union (Ekta Azad) removed the smart-chip meters from several villages in Ludhiana and Sangrur districts and deposited them at nearby power stations in a move to oppose the Electricity (Amendment) Bill. Farmers staged sit-in demonstrations in front of District Commissioner offices across Panjab on 17–18 Dec demanding that the government hold immediate talks with the union. Meanwhile, farmers in Rajasthan’s Hanumangarh district clashed with the police during a protest against the construction of an ethanol factory at Tibbi on 10 Dec. Several were injured when police resorted to caning and lobbed teargas shells to disperse the farmers as the farmers used tractors to demolish a boundary wall of the under-construction plant. The 40-MW grain-based ethanol plant is being constructed by Dune Ethanol Private Limited, a Chandigarh-headquartered company with a cost of USD 500K in Rathikhera village panchayat near Tibbi. Farmers, many of them Sikhs, have been opposing the factory’s construction for more than a year with protests beginning in September 2024 over concerns of air pollution and increased water toxicity in the region. In November, a large team of police had surrounded the protest site and dismantled the tents. Therefore, thousands of farmers gathered at a Mahapanchayat in Tibbi on 10 Dec and attempted to enter the plant site. The clashes led to the filing of many First Information Reports and 40 arrests. As the protests continue, farmers from Panjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh have reached the protest site in support. The company has agreed to temporarily halt the work on the plant site as the government decided to conduct a high-level inquiry into the environmental viability of the plant on 12 Dec. The plant officials have given a written assurance that ‘no work would be done until the inquiry is complete’. Additionally, the Union Minister of Chemicals and Fertilisers Jagat Prakash Nadda said that the union government has cancelled 5,371 licenses of fertilizer firms for black marketing, hoarding as well as for distributing substandard material. Nadda said that the fertilizer supply to every state is monitored in real time through Integrated Fertiliser Monitoring System (earlier coverage).