Bittu pushes demand for relief package to farmers
Friday, 01/08/2014
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CHANDIGARH: Congress MP from Ludhiana Ravneet Singh Bittu on Thursday sought union agriculture minister Radha Mohan Singh’s intervention to pay heed to Punjab government’s demand for a ` 2,330-crore relief package for farmers of the state, which faces a drought-like situation.
Participating in the discussion of the flood and drought situation in the country in the Lok Sabha, Bittu said the Akali-BJP government had recently sought the relief package in view of the union agriculture minister “denying any such demand.”
The Congress MP stated that besides Punjab, the Haryana government had also demanded a relief package of Rs 800 crore in a similar drought-like situation in the country’s north-west plains.
Bittu stated that 11 of the 22 districts of Punjab did not have any rainfall this monsoon, while eight districts had less than average rainfall.
He said it was the previous UPA government that had extended ` 800 crore as a relief package to the Punjab farmers and ` 1,400 crore to Haryana in 2009.
The water table in Punjab, he said, had receded by 400 ft and this was making farmers spend 5-6 lakh to bore their own tube wells to such a depth. He said the farmers were still taking loans or credit money as investment on tubewell irrigation through diesel in the absence of adequate power.
