Urging all the stakeholders to urgently seek ways to end the ongoing protests, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has said that the current agitation by farmers has led to supply chain disruptions, which will impact the economy in the coming days and may impinge upon the ongoing recovery from the economic contraction due to COVID-19.
As per the industry body, the farmers' protest, which has intensified over the past couple of weeks, has led to obstruction of traffic and road blockades across multiple checkpoints in the northern states of Delhi-NCR, Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, and in smaller measure in many other states. The already broken supply-chain which was recovering post the pandemic-induced lockdown has come under severe stress.
The CII also observed that the effect of the agitation is more acute for industries in hilly regions of Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Jammu and Kashmir which are dependent on goods transported by road. There is also uncertainty around the transportation of farm products to the major markets of Delhi-NCR and it could lead to significant losses to the farm sector in these states.