23 November,2023 06:53 PM IST | Pune | mid-day online correspondent
Representational Pic/File/iStock
The Maharashtra sugarcane farmers of on Thursday blocked the Mumbai-Bengaluru highway at Kolhapur seeking additional payment for sugarcane purchased last year, reported the PTI.
Their protest led to traffic on the arterial route blocked, a senior official said, as per the PTI.
Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana leader Raju Shetti, who is leading the protest, said farmers must be given Rs 100 extra per tonne over and above the FRP at which the sugarcane was purchased last year, according to the news agency.
"Mill owners are ready to give Rs 100 extra from next year, while they are refusing to pay this amount for last year. We will not end the highway protest till this demand is met," said Shetti, a former Lok Sabha MP, the PTI reported on Thursday.
Kolhapur Superintendent of Police Mahendra Pandit said the highway remains blocked and traffic has been diverted.
A meeting with agitators is underway at the office of the collector to end the impasse, the SP informed.
Meanwhile, earlier this week, as many as eight participants of an anti-mining agitation in Maharashtra's Gadchiroli district were detained on Monday after they allegedly stopped the way of security personnel heading towards a police station, officials said, reported the PTI.
According to the PTI, the residents of more than 70 tribal-dominated villages have been protesting in Todgatta village for over 250 days against six iron mines proposed at Surjagarh in Gadchiroli.
The Gadchiroli police in a statement said that a police station at Wangeturi on Maharashtra-Chhattisgarh border in Etapalli taluka was proposed to be inaugurated on Monday, the news agency reported.
When police parties from Gatta along with C-60 teams, a special anti-Maoist commando force of Maharashtra, were going towards Wangeturi through Todgatta, the agitators stopped them from going ahead, the release said, as per the PTI.
The Gadchiroli police claimed some locals complained to them that they were being forced to sit on the protest.
The police station is being opened in that area to end the Maoist menace and make people live without any fear, an official release said, as per the PTI.
(with PTI inputs)
