Congress to prepare report on farm suicides
Tuesday, 12/01/2016
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CHANDIGARH: The Punjab Congress on Monday said the party would visit the families of farmers who had committed suicide and prepare a detailed report to take up in the forthcoming Vidhan Sabha session.
Congress leaders also met assembly speaker Charanjit Singh Atwal to demand a longer assembly session to raise issues of farmer suicides, deletion of “deserving” beneficiaries of the blue card scheme and “violation” of the Right to Education (RTE) Act.
Congress Legislature Party leader Charanjit Channi, his deputy Bharat Bhushan Ashu and party chief whip Navtej Cheema, along with MLA Gurkirat Kotli, demanded at least 40 sittings of the Punjab Vidhan Sabha a year.
Later, addressing mediapersons, Channi said the government used the clause of discretion of the business advisory committee to reduce the sittings of the Vidhan Sabha. “The burning issues of Punjab need to be discussed and debated. The opposition wants a healthy discussion without disruption of the House,” the CLP leader said.
To highlight the farm crisis, the party will start a farmer contact programme in Malwa. “More than 3,000 farmers and labourers have committed suicide in the past, 90 in Bathinda, Mansa and Sangrur in the past four months alone. But the government has recommended the cases of just 55 farmers for compensation. We will visit the families of such farmers and prepare a report,” he said.
Accusing the SAD-BJP government of politicising welfare schemes, Channi said 4.5 lakh families had been deleted from the blue card scheme since these families were inclined to the Congress.
“The state is also violating the RTE Act as private schools are denying admission to children of poor families. There is a nexus between the education minister and private school players, which is causing the social discrimination,” he added.
