Also demands Rs 25,000 per acre for farmers whose crops have been damaged by rains
The Punjab Congress on Monday demanded Rs 11,000 per acre as compensation to the farmers to neutralise additional cost they had to incur to save their crops from drought. Besides, the party also demanded Rs 25,000 per acre to the farmers whose crops have been damaged due to recent heavy rains.
It was decided that memorandums containing demands of the kisans and khet mazdoors (farmers and farm labourers) would be submitted to the respective Deputy Commissioners all over the State on September 24.
The decisions were taken during a high level meeting of the party’s Kisan and Khet Mazdoor Cell at party’s head office in Chandigarh, by passing the resolutions, convened by Kisan Cell chairman Inderjit Singh Zira.
Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) president Partap Singh Bajwa rapped the Parkash Singh Badal Government for shedding crocodile tears for farmers while doing nothing on the ground. He accused Badal of cheating the farmers by claiming that his Government was pro-farmer as in reality, it had proved to be the worst Government for the farm sector.
Substantiating his charge, he claimed that during the NDA regime from 1998 to 2004, the minimum support price of paddy was hiked just Rs 60 as compared to Rs 690 per quintal during the UPA regime from 2004 to 2014.
Bajwa alleged that the Badal Government had also misappropriated compensation released by the Centre for farmers of Punjab, while reminded that in 2008-2009, the UPA Government waived of Rs 77,000 crore loan of farmer across the country.
He announced that the kisan wing would be strengthened down to the village level and new generation of farmer leaders would be groomed. In all, nine resolutions were passed during the meeting. Among other decisions, it was demanded that MSP of all crops should be linked with WPI and land rent should be increased to Rs 30,000 per acres while calculating the input cost of production.
The meeting called upon the Centre to include basmati for the fixation of MSP and make adequate arrangements for its procurement. It was demanded that entire debt of the farmers and farm workers should be waived and the farmer workers allotted five marla plots each.
The farmers should be compensated to neutralise for the hike in diesel prices every month. It was also demanded that problems of farmers having agricultural lands on border areas beyond the barbed wire should be sorted out.