Capt. Amarinder Singh accuses Badals of having ‘double crossed’ farmers on issue of farm laws

In a fierce attack on the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) for ‘double crossing’ the farmers over the issue of farm laws, Punjab Chief Minister Capt. Amarinder Singh on Monday said that the farm laws were drafted with the consent of SAD with Harsimrat Kaur Badal as the Union Minister. Even former CM Parkash Singh Badal argued in favour of these laws but they changed their tune completely when the move backfired, he said.

Calling Congress as the only party which protested against these laws from the very first day, the Chief Minister said that his government called an all party meeting and then held consultations with the farmers’ unions. Afterwards, the Punjab Government convened a special session of the Punjab Vidhan Sabha and passed Bills aimed at countering these farm laws, he said.

Taking on the Union Government, the Chief Minister said that the Constitution has been amended 127 times since 1950. "So why not one more time to repeal the farm laws for providing succour to the farmers who have been sitting at Singhu and Tikri borders," said Capt. Amarinder Singh, adding that Punjab Government has provided Rs. 5 lakh to every farmer from the state who died during the agitation against farm laws besides a job to the kin of the deceased farmers.

Capt. Amarinder Singh was addressing a gathering on the occasion of the laying of the foundation stone of PAU - College of Agriculture at Ballowal Saunkhri in Nawanshahar district and kickstarting the academic session with admissions already made to 60 seats and classes set to begin from October 1, 2021.

The Chief Minister said that it would be the first time that a college of agriculture outside the Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana would come up with the BSc (Agriculture) course.

He said that the opening of this college will prove to be a milestone in the development of agriculture in the Kandi area and will be helpful in strengthening its research on the problems and crops of this region as well as agricultural services for region’s farmers.

The college would boost the research on how to ensure more production with the judicious use of water resources as the lands are less and water is scarce in the region, added the Chief Minister.

Announcing a horticultural research station in Nawanshahar, Capt Amarinder Singh emphasized apple research also as part of diversification.

"The state government would now pay 90 percent of the subsidy from earlier 60 percent paid to the small farmers for erecting barbed wire fencing in order to protect their crops from animals," the CM also announced, adding that five ‘horticulture estates’ have been set up to guide the farmers and provide them the services for raising fruits and vegetables.

As part of untiring efforts to improve the market infrastructure, market intelligence services and processing facilities, two Mega Food Parks have been set up as also an Agricultural Marketing Innovations, Research and Intelligence Centre to help in production and marketing planning keeping in view the national and international demand and prices.

Coming to the other issues, the Punjab Chief Minister further said that during the past 4.5 years, the investor and business-friendly policies of the Punjab government led to an investment of Rs. 91,000 crore with 20 lakh youth facilitated with jobs.

The Chief Minister also handed over cheques under debt waiver scheme as a token gesture to 25 landless farmers and farm labourers out of the total 31066 beneficiaries in the district. These beneficiaries have got benefits to the tune of Rs 64.61 crore.