Surat/Amreli:

Farmers today took out a tractor rally in Surat district of Guajrat for opposing the land acquisition process for Mumbai-Ahmedabad High Speed Rail (bullet train) project.

A similar rally to oppose the alleged uncontrolled and illegal sand and other minerals mining was also taken out by farmers of 10 villages in Amreli district of Saurashtra region in the state.

In the first rally taken out from Nilyol village in Surat, farmers from Kosamba, Palsana and Kamrej were present. They were holding various placards in their hand opposing bullet train project, The rally was also against the compensation procedure being adopted for the project. Their representatives handed over a memorandum of 14 point demands in the collector’s office here.

Notably, the proposed bullet train is to ply a distance of around 350 kms in Gujarat for which land to the tune of around 1000 hectares was likely to be acquired in Valsad, Navsari, Surat, Bharuch, Vadodara, Anand and Ahmedabad districts.

In Amreli, the tractor rally of farmers including the Sarpanchs of 10 villages against mining mafias was started from Karjana village and it crossed around 20 km distance to reach Amreli.

The farmers had sat on a Dharna outside the collector office in Amreli when the main gates were locked on arrival of the rally.

DeshGujarat