Ahmedabad, 16 April 2012

Thousands of farmers with truckloads of cotton stock today morning blockaded three major highways in Gujarat protesting against the Cotton Corporation of India(CCI) on issues related to cotton procurement.

Farmers of Rajkot district blockaded the Rajkot-Jamnagar highway for hours in the morning.

They said, “after reading in newspaper that CCI will start procuring cotton from Monday, we came here with our cotton stock, however no official of CCI is present here and nobody is answering us that why there’s no CCI centre here!”

Police faced tough time to convince the farmers to leave the highway. The farmers agreed to leave the highway only after they were assured that CCI would start purchasing cotton stock here from Thursday.

In north Gujarat, thousands of farmers blockaded two important highways stretches; Himmatnagar-Shamlaji and Himmatnagar-Ambaji. One group of farmers was led by local BJP MP Shri Mahendrasinh Chauhan. Farmers were protesting against CCI.