Farmers seeking a hike in sugarcane prices blocked rail tracks and a national highway in Punjab’s Jalandhar for the second consecutive day on Saturday, affecting trains and vehicular traffic.
According to railway officials of Ferozepur division, as many as 69 trains have been cancelled, while 54 have been either diverted or short-terminated.
Rail passengers travelling for ”Raksha Bandhan” festival on Sunday bore the maximum brunt of the blockade.
Emergency vehicles have, however, been allowed to run, they added.
Protesters have blocked the Jalandhar-Phagwara stretch of the national highway near Dhanowali village of Jalandhar district.
The blockade affected vehicular movement to and from Jalandhar, Amritsar and Pathankot, though the administration diverted the traffic through some alternative routes.
Farmers sitting on the Jalandhar-Chaheru section have blocked the Ludhiana-Amritsar and the Ludhiana-Jammu rail tracks in Jalandhar, affecting several trains, including the Amritsar-New Delhi Swarna Shatabdi EXP SPL (02030), Amritsar-Dehradun EXP SPL (04664), New Delhi-Amritsar Shatabdi SPL (02013), and the New Delhi-Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Katra Shri Shakti SPL (02461).
They are demanding that the Punjab government raise the state assured price (SAP) of sugarcane and clear payment of arrears of Rs 200 crore-250 crores.
