Hyderabad: The ongoing protests by the farmers across Punjab against the newly implemented Farm Bills, has been immensely affecting the businesses across the State of Punjab, said Mr Sharad Kumar Saraf, President, FIEO ( Federation of Indian Export Organisations) here on Saturday.
The Federation, on behalf of overall trade and industry and especially the exporting community, urged the government both at the Centre and in the State of Punjab to immediately intervene and take some urgent steps to at least clear the blocked railway tracks by the agitating groups, convincing them to take peaceful means of protests, rather than disrupting the entire state economy by blocking key railway routes, Mr Saraf said in a statement here.
He said the movement of containers, both by trains and road, from various ICD’s across Punjab and to the State has been halted creating huge setbacks not only to the domestic industry but also to the overall exporting community.
He said that the trade and industry in Punjab is already under tremendous pressure and the exporting fraternity is the worst hit as a large number of orders have already got cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak and now the ongoing protest by farmers across the State has brought almost everything to stand still especially for exporters.
The protesting farmers are not allowing movement of goods, which is further causing delay in shipments and timely deliveries of consignments to their overseas clients, which may result in cancellation of export orders and will also affect the future prospect of state’s exports, Mr Saraf said.
FIEO President also said that not only the exporters, the importers are also facing a very difficult time, as a large number of import containers are stuck up at various ports or are in transit.
Talking about the volume of export containers that are stuck up at various ICD across Punjab, Mr Saraf said that approximately 4000 TEU’s export containers with goods value of about Rs 2000 Crores have been blocked due to the ongoing crisis.
