Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on Sunday said that Punjab stands enormously benefitted from the BJP-led NDA Government at the Centre under stewardship of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Speaking on completion of two years of Modi Government, Badal said: “With the BJP-led NDA Government coming to power at the Centre, our State stands benefited enormously from its benevolence as it had already given gifts like AIIMS, IIM, heritage status to Amritsar, including Amritsar, Jalandhar and ludhiana as smart cities and World Heritage Park status to legendary monument of Jallianwala Bagh and Horticulture Research Institute of Excellence at Amritsar.”
Badal, interacting with the media persons on the sidelines of second day of his sangat darshan program in lambi assembly segment, conveyed his sincere gratitude to the Modi Government for showing keen interest in overall development and prosperity of the State.
He confidently said that the Centre “would never turn down our any genuine demand or request in future also for the betterment of the state and its people”.
Reacting to BJP national president Amit Shah’s statement referring to Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) as an elder brother in its alliance with BJP in Punjab, Badal said that our ties with the saffron party were neither just for electoral gain nor transient in nature rather “these are firm like rock and are everlasting on the principals of peace, communal harmony, amity and brotherhood”.
On spurt in the incidents of farm suicides, Badal said that the state government has recently enacted ‘The Punjab Settlement of Agricultural Indebtedness Act-2016’ to put in an effective mechanism for expeditious determination and settlement of non-institutional agricultural debt.
“I hope that this Act would go a long way in mitigating woes of beleaguered farm community on one hand and saving them from sheer exploitation at the hands of unscrupulous or fraudulent elements on the other,” he said.
The Act provides for expeditious settlement of debt disputes, he said adding that the process for setting up these district level forums and state level tribunal had already been initiated. As per the provisions of this Act, any debtor or creditor of agricultural loan can file a petition before the District level Forum for settlement of their debt; and if aggrieved with the order of the Forum, an appeal can be filed before the State level Tribunal.