Channi calls for assembly debate on Jat reservation
Tuesday, 23/02/2016
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CHANDIGARH: Punjab Congress Legislature Party (CLP) chief Charanjit Singh Channi on Monday proposed discussions on Jat reservation in the forthcoming budget session of the Vidhan Sabha.
In a statement, Channi said the agrarian crisis in Punjab had been deepening over the years and it was getting reflected in increasing incidence of suicides by distressed farmers, especially in Malwa.
Channi pointed out that a majority of the farmers committing suicide were those owning less than five-acre land and they did not have any alternative source of survival. He said besides discussing and debating steps to make farming profitable for small farmers, the issue of reservation should be discussed as the two were closely interlinked. The reservation demand had surfaced mainly because of shrinking of the job market and farming turning unprofitable, he added.
Channi said modalities should be worked out after evolving consensus, but without tinkering with the present quota system.
The CLP leader said the matter of reservation for Jats was now coming up in almost all states in north India.
He said the Congress would approach the speaker for a special discussion on this sensitive issue before the situation got out of hand, like in the neighbouring state of Haryana.
