The impact of the nationwide strike called by farmers against centre’s farm laws remained rather dismal in Uttarakhand. Barring Udham Singh Nagar and Haridwar districts, bandh failed to have any impact in other districts of the state.
In capital city of Dehradun, life was quite normal, though opposition parties particularly Congress did stage some isolated protest. Bandh also failed to evoke any impact in the hill districts of the state. However, agriculture predominant Udham Singh Nagar and Haridwar did witness some protest. Markets were closed in Rudrapur, Sitarganj and other areas of Udham Singh Nagar district, where farmers took out demonstrations.
Police arrangements at place.
In Dehradun all the major commercial establishments and services continued to operate on Tuesday. Though all the shops in the marketplaces were opened, the footfall was certainly less in the market. According to local shopkeepers, all the shops were opened but the customers probably expected the shops to remain closed due to which very few people arrived at the market places. Moreover, the shopkeepers also informed that they did not shut down their shops to support the farmers’ protest because nobody approached them for their support in the city. Besides this, there is a weekly closure on Sunday too and they cannot afford to close their shops for two days in a week, said the shopkeepers. “The local shopkeepers are already facing losses for long closures due to Covid-19 pandemic and now no one will shut down their shops to bear more loss. Also, no farmers group or political party approached us to support them in this nationwide strike. Nobody even approached shopkeepers in marketplaces to close their shops on Bharat Bandh so when nobody here needed that support, why shopkeepers will waste their time and bear losses unnecessarily,” said the president of Doon Valley Mahanagar Udyog Vyapar Mandal (DVMUVM) Pankaj Mason.
Apart from local shopkeepers, the operators of city buses did not support Bharat Bandh too. President of Dehradun Mahanagar City Bus Seva Mahasangh, Vijay Vardhan Dandriyal said that the business of the city buses is suffering for the last nine months but no political group or party stood with them or supported them during their hard times. “While keeping our distance from political groups, we decided not to participate in this strike and continued to run a handful of buses presently running in the city,” said Dandriyal. Further, the strike also failed to have any impact on vegetable supplies of Dehradun. The secretary of Dehradun Mandi Samiti Vijay Thapliyal informed that there was no issue in the Mandi premises as well as in the arrival of vegetables and fruits supply. “Everything was normal in Mandi on Tuesday like the usual days. In fact, we actually received more vegetable supply than the other days rather than the anticipated less supply. We generally receive about 6500 quintals of regular vegetable supply from various cities of the country but we received more than 8000 quintals of vegetable supply on Tuesday,” said Thapliyal.
Wednesday, 09 December 2020 | PNS | Dehradun
