Chandigarh, August 20: Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee President Sunil Jakhar termed the slight increase in the price of sugarcane by the Union Government as a joke with the sugarcane growers. He said that apart from this the Modi Sarkar had not given any benefit to the sugarcane growers even in the package of Rs. 8000 crore announced in 2018.
He said that the BJP-led central government was proving to be a bourgeois govt which did not care about the poor farmers of the country. Due to Covid pandemic when farmers were facing severe economic crisis, a meagre hike of only Rs. 10 per quintal is not enough.
Claiming that sugarcane crop could help in changing the traditional crop cycle of wheat and paddy in Punjab, he said anti-farmer policies of the central government were proving fatal to the state’s crop diversification program. Before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the central government had announced a package of Rs. 8000 crore for sugarcane growers for political gain but even after 2 years, they did not know about the package and its status, this proved to be a part of the false promises that BJP had been making since it formed the govt.
Slamming SAD, he said that it was even more astonishing that the Akali Dal leaders who had been trumpeting the interests of the farmers had remained silent on this very sensitive issue related to the farmers.
He said that the SAD leaders were present in the anti-farmer decisions being taken by the Union Cabinet one after the other but still they were proving to be completely incapable of protecting the interests of the farmers of the state. The studded silence of Akali leaders was proving to be an indicator of their dual role.
The state Congress chief said that on the other hand the Congress government of Punjab led by Captain Amarinder Singh had waived off the debts of over five and a half lakh farmers of the state to the tune of over Rs.4700 crore. A sugarcane research center was also being set up in Kalanaur area of Gurdaspur district to promote viable diversification.
