Finally, rail services to Punjab are set to resume and so is the power production in two private thermal plants at Rajpura and Banawali in Mansa.
The protesting farmers will be lifting their dharnas from the railway tracks linking the main railway lines to the private thermal plants. However, they will not stop their agitation and have decided to shift it from the tracks to the sides of the railway lines. The dharnas are expected to be lifted from the tracks by Friday evening.
The protests, as part of the Rail Roko agitation by farmers, have been going on for 37 days now. A Venu Prasad, managing director of Punjab State Power Corporation Limited, said that the two power plants had not been able to generate power for almost 20 days.
The Union Railway Ministry had refused to resume rail services to Punjab till all the tracks were cleared. While the main railway tracks were cleared last month for allowing passage of goods trains, the BKU (Ekta Ugrahan) had continued to block the link railway tracks to the two private thermal plants.
One blockade was removed on Wednesday. Fourteen of 31 blockades were removed on Thursday evening. The Punjab government had assured that all blockades on rail premises by protesters will be cleared by Friday morning, Railway Board Chairman V K Yadav had said on Thursday.
According to data from the Railways over 2,225 freight rakes carrying essential commodities could not be operated till date due to the blockades caused by the protestors.
Punjab chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh had also staged a relay dharna in Delhi. Read here:
