By Punjabnewswire4u (Balbir)
CHANDIGARH/ NEW DELHI, AUG 4
The Punjab
Chief Minister, Mr. Parkash Singh Badal,on Saturday morning called on the Prime
Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and sought a desperately needed liberal
agricultural relief package for Punjab. The
Chief Minister said that the country at large and Punjab
in particular were sitting on the brink of a farm emergency due to a
combination of natural and human factors.
“The brave farmers of Punjab
have always come to the rescue of the country and fellow countrymen in their
hour of crises. It’s the turn of the
country now to come to his rescue. And this will be in the larger national
interest as it directly affects our food security.”
Mr. Badal said that agriculture in the
country is already in the throes of "one of the worst crises in recent
history. The nation’s bread winner is today himself facing the prospect of
hunger, poverty and back-breaking indebtedness."
The Chief Minister sought a relief
package to Rs.2380 crores for the drought hit Punjab
farmers. Mr. Badal also called for putting
in place a permanent, in-built rapid-response economic system to meet farm
emergencies such as those caused by Monsoon failure, floods or other natural
causes. The Chief Minister said that the Center should make use of the advanced
technology and modern evaluation techniques to provide timely and adequate
relief to farmers in the face of sudden crisis.
Mr. Badal also referred to relief
announced by the Center for some other states including Gujarat, Maharashtra
and Haryana adding said that leaving Punjab out of the ambit of
this relief has caused widespread and profound anguish and resentment in the minds of the Punjab
farmers.
”Unfortunately,
this was not the first time that farmers of the country’s biggest contributor
to national food kitty had been completely by-passed. Earlier also, the Center
had by-passed Punjab while announcing a
package of Rs. 70,000 crores for states affected by farm indebtedness and
resultant suicides. The same story has been repeated by the Center now,” said
Mr. Badal.
The
Chief Minister said that he found it hard to believe that the Center did not
include the country’s largest producer of food-grains in its calculations for
relief package.
Mr.
Badal, who called on Dr Manmohan Singh at the latter’s official Race Course
residence, said that unless the farmers
were helped in their hour of grave crises, the entire economy would take a big
hit, seriously and adversely impacting
all growth targets. "It is in overall national interest to come up with a
bold and timely response to bail the farmers out of this crisis."
Later,
in a statement, the Chief Minister also made a strong plea for treating
agriculture as a “special category and a priority sector” like the defense
services. “The peasantry and the soldiery have always made unparalleled
sacrifices for national security of border and food fronts. They must be
accorded a special status in pursuance for the national slogan of Jai Jawan,
Jai Kisan,” said the Chief Minister.
The
Chief Minister said that as the Center controlled practically every critical
area of decision making on the farm sector, such as fixing of MSP as well as
the prices of farm inputs like fertilizers, diesel, pesticides and weedicides,
the onus of helping the farmer with a comprehensive and liberal package is on
the government of India.
States have no say in policy-formulation and decision making on any aspect
concerning the present and future of agriculture.”
The Chief Minister pointed out that
there has been crippling 70% deficit in monsoon up to August 2 this year. "The country at large and Punjab and the
North West
region of the country are in the grip of one of the worst droughts since the
1960s. Mr. Badal apprised the forecast
for the remaining stretch of the monsoon period holds out no hope for the
Kharif season. The scanty rainfall had dealt a crushing blow to the peasantry
in Punjab as it hit them at the Paddy sowing
season," said Mr. Badal. The Chef
Minister said that the treatment meted out to the leading agricultural state of
the country has been shocking. "We have been seeking a comprehensive
economic package to save the nation’s
savior. Unfortunately, even the financial packages announced for farmers
in the country have been denied the country’s leading agricultural state. All
this has virtually broken the back of the agriculture and agriculturists in the
state," said the Chief Minister.
Mr.
Badal hoped the Monsoon failure in the state could pose a serious threat to the
overall food security of the country and said that because of this the farmers
had to borne exorbitant expenditure to nurture and save their paddy crops from
drying up and the country from an impending famine reminiscent of the days when
India had to virtually beg for food in the comity of nations. He said that although Punjab
had for long been advocating that the country’s bread winner, which has bailed
the nation out of famines and the disgrace of the legacy of PL480, is himself
driven to the brink of humiliation and even death. The farmers of Punjab had already sacrificed
their most precious assets in terms of land fertility and water in the larger
interests without asking for anything in return to be compensated for this huge
personal loss just to make our country self reliant in food production.
Giving
details of the extra expenditure being incurred by the state government, the
PSPL and the state farmer to fight the crises, the Chief Minister apprised Dr.
Manmohan Singh that the 70% rainfall deficit means that the farmers would have
to incur an additional expenditure for sustaining the paddy crop transplanted
in about 27.80 lakh hectares and other Kharif crops like Cotton and Maize etc.
by using diesel to run pump sets. The
total extra expenditure to be incurred on this account will be approximately
Rs.550 crores. Further, an additional expenditure of Rs.300 crores is likely to
be incurred by the farmers for replacement of mono-block pump set operated
tube-wells to submersible pump set operated deep tube-wells. A cumulative extra
burden of Rs.850 crore was to be borne
by the state farmers to save their crops.
Apart from this, the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PCPL) will
incur an additional expenditure of Rs.1530 crore by diverting power from other
sectors as well as purchasing power at a higher price. Thus, additional cost on all these accounts
will be Rs.2380 crores. The farmers and
the state government were already engaged in a massive effort to save the
nation from any threat to its food security, said Mr.Badal. The PSPCL too was making all out efforts to
ensure that the nation’s fixed targets of food production were achieved at all
costs by extending all possible help to the peasantry in this critical juncture. All this has put up an unbearable strain on
our economy.
Mr.
Badal urged Dr. Manmohan Singh seeking his direct intervention to bail out the
farmers and the PSPCL in one the worst hours of crisis through immediately
announcing a comprehensive economic package in the larger national interest.
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