Farmers protest: Students asked to leave for board exam centres early

New Delhi: With board exams beginning from tomorrow, students in Delhi on Wednesday were advised to leave for their centres early as traffic movement has been hit in several areas, particularly in the city's border areas, due to restrictions in view of the farmers' protest.

For now, the 'Delhi Chalo' agitation by farmers from Punjab has been contained at the state's border with Haryana. Farmer leaders have said a meeting will be held with three Union ministers in Chandigarh on Thursday and they will decide the next course of action after it. Cross-border traffic between Delhi and Haryana was also affected as police have put in place multiple layers of barricades, barbed wires and concrete blocks at Tikri and Singhu to stop farmers from entering the capital.

This is the second day of the agitation by farmers to press the Centre to accept their demands, including legal guarantee of minimum support price for their crops and loan waiver.

The CBSE in an advisory said that "as the examination starts at 10.30 am, hence, all the students have been directed to reach their examination centres at or before 10 am".

More than 5.8 lakh students will take the exams at 877 centres in Delhi from Thursday.

The restrictions, which are being implemented the most stringently at the Tikri and Singhu border points, have got residents of these areas worried about how their children would reach exam centres in time.

Children are not being able to reach coaching classes, how will they reach exam centres, a local of Tikri said and added that the restrictions have added to the concern of parents, who are already battling the "stress of exams".

While students who have vehicles have decided to use the metro to beat the traffic, others are opting to leave home much before their usual time to get to their centres using autos and buses.

Adding to their woes, the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) has called a 'Bharat Bandh' on Friday in support of the farmers' 'Delhi Chalo' agitation.

The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) said that the Delhi Metro on February 13 registered the highest-ever count of daily passenger journeys at 71.09 lakh, a record achieved on a day when huge traffic jams were reported in the national capital region. The restrictions have also taken a toll on businesses in border areas with shops and complexes either shut or closing hours before their usual time.

"Our staff cannot reach work. We are closed for the past two days and this is resulting in a loss of Rs 40,000 to Rs 50,000 a day," said Nikesh, the manager of shopping complex 'Cost to Cost' in Singhu.

The rent of the building, "we operate in, comes to around Rs 20,000 a day", he claimed and asked, "Who will compensate for our losses? The government or the farmers?" Karan, who has three shops in Singhu, claimed that shops are running at 95 per cent loss since the restrictions, adding that his customers are from Singhu as well as areas in Haryana.

Because of the heavy barricading, people coming to Delhi are facing difficulties with some buses dropping passengers ahead of the border crossings.

"The bus dropped us way behind the Singhu border which has been closed by police. They told us that we have to walk towards the other side to get another mode of transport to Delhi," a woman said.

Traffic movement, however, was not affected at the city's Ghazipur border with Uttar Pradesh.

As a precaution, the streets and bylanes connecting Sonipat in Haryana to Delhi near the Singhu border have also been dug up to prevent the protesters from entering Delhi.

Security personnel deployed at the Singhu border also tested a system that can generate extremely high-frequency sounds that may help in dispersing a crowd, according to sources. They said the system is called Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD). During their protest in 2020, farmers from different states, mainly Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, had staged a sit-in at the Singhu, Ghazipur and Tikri borders. They sat there from August 2020 to December 2021.

Police had to rush logistics in 2020 to check the entry of the farmers moving in a procession of tractors.

A senior Delhi Police officer said learning from past experience, tight security arrangements were made this time.

Earlier in the day, Haryana security personnel lobbed tear gas shells on farmers from Punjab at the Shambhu border between the two states as thousands of protesters stayed put there on Wednesday. The police action came whenever any group of the protesting farmers tried to move towards the barricades.

Some farmers also pelted stones at the security personnel who were positioned close to the barricades.