Contrary to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi's plans of interlinking rivers of Punjab and repairing the dams, Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on Wednesday ruled out any such possibility. “It is practically not feasible because Punjab has not even a single drop of surplus water,” said Badal while talking with the media on the sidelines of the 11th death anniversary of late SGPC chief Gurcharan Singh Tohra in Patiala’s Tohra village.
He said that there was no need of repairing dams as the Government is taking care of the its maintenance. Modi, during his recent visit to Hussainiwala to pay homage to martyrs Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru on March 23, had suggested that rivers should be linked and old canals to be repaired.
less than a fortnight after, Badal on Wednesday said that the State Government had already constructed dams over its rivers — Sutlej, Beas and Ravi — and there was hardly any river left un-tapped. “Our State is already water deficit and the inter linking of rivers in the State is a distant reality,” Badal said.
On the issue of SAD’s support to the NDA's land Acquisition Bill, Badal clarified, “We have asked the Centre to make clause of farmer's consent prior to their land acquisition mandatory beside to give them solatium at the rate of 30 per cent as compensation allowance for their displacement and rehabilitation by allotting residential and commercial property through land pooling scheme as being done in Punjab.
Badal, on the issue of seeking adequate compensation from the Centre for crop loss due to untimely rains and hailstorm across the State, said that the norms of the Centre in this regard were “too meager, too insufficient and too little to compensate the farmers” since the Congress regime. “Now, the NDA government has been requested to revise these norms suitably to make the loss suffered by the farmers,” he said.
The Chief Minister said that his Government had already pleaded to introduce a Crop Insurance Scheme so that the entire damage caused to their standing crops could be adequately compensated. The Centre was merely paying Rs3,600 per acre as compensation to the farmers and state was giving Rs1400 from its own resources to make it Rs5,000 per acre, he said.