हिंदी
AAP corners Congress government over depriving farmers of crop insurance scheme
Chandigarh, August 12
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Punjab has slammed the Amarinder Singh government in Punjab and the Modi-led union government for depriving the farmers of the state from the crop insurance scheme, accusing the successive Congress and SAD-BJP governments of appeasing big corporate houses at the expense of the farmers, who were already deep into fiscal mess.
In a joint statement issued on Wednesday, party leaders, including Kultar Singh Sandhwan, Meet Hayer and Jai Krishan Singh Rouri said both the state and central governments had adopted an anti-farmer stance over the issue of crop insurance schemes, spelling doom for the beleaguered community.
Kultar Singh Sandhwan and Meet Hayer said that earlier the BJP-SAD government at the Center had brought in a uniform crop insurance scheme for the farming fraternity across the country, which was untenable due to the geographically diversity of the country.
The AAP leaders said that depriving the farmers of the crop insurance scheme brought in by the Union Government might be a compulsion for the Punjab Government, but why it had not initiated steps to this effect at its own level during its three and half years tenure.
Kultar Singh Sandhwan and Jai Krishan Singh Rouri said the Amarinder government had betrayed the interest of farmers by depriving them of the state level policy on crop insurance by throwing the same in the refuse bin, leaving them to rue and rant in resignation.
The AAP MLAs stressed the need that the government of Punjab should implement the Delhi government model, where it paid Rs 20,000 per acre towards compensation to the farmers to offset the cross losses, besides bringing in more farmer-friendly crop insurance schemes, which was the need of the hour.
Sandhwan and Rouri said the Punjab Government had, in its election manifesto, had promised to pay a compensation of Rs. 20,000 per acre to the affected farmers for their crop loss due to natural calamities, but was shelling out a meagre compensation, ranging between Rs 2,000 and Rs 12,500 per acre, which, they claimed, was also not being paid on time and in a transparent manner, for which both the state and union governments were to be held responsible, saying they should come up with effective and farmer-friendly crop insurance schemes in Punjab on a priority basis.
