Chandigarh, April 1, 2021 (Yes Punjab News)
The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) today asserted that chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh was befooling ‘arhatiyas’ with fake assurances in the same manner in which he had deceived each and every section of society and asked him to make public the letter he had supposedly written to the Prime Minister on the issue of Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) scheme.
In a statement here, former MP Prof Prem Singh Chandumajra said it was ridiculous that the chief minister was making assurances that the current DBT system under which payment for government purchase of food grains is made to ‘arhatiyas’ would continue when his government had given a written assurance to the centre that the new system of direct transfer into farmer accounts would be started from the current season.
Prof Chandumajra said it had been one and a half years since the Congress government had assured the centre that it would implement the system proposed by the centre and put an end to a successful system which had stood the test of time.
“The chief minister failed to meet the Food minister or even the Prime Minister to ensure the new system was not introduced in Punjab. Even now he has been talking about writing to the Prime Minister in his meeting with the ‘arhatiyas’ but has done nothing concrete to ensure the new system is not imposed on Punjab”.
Appealing to Punjabis to be ready to fight against the discriminatory attitude of the centre towards the State, Prof Chandumajra said “it is clear that the centre wants to punish Punjabis for leading the protests against the three agricultural acts”.
He said the chief minister had queered the pitch even further by not standing up to the centre. He said the Congress government had not even taken up the case of Rs 800 crore owed to it by the centre on account of rural development fund forcefully.
The SAD leader said the new specifications announced by the Food Corporation of India (FCI) were also part of a conspiracy to stall government purchase on msp in Punjab. He said specifications on moisture content as well as shriveled grain had been tightened unrealistically so as to severely reduce government purchase of food grains from Punjab.
Asking the chief minister to take concrete steps to protect the rights of farmers as well as ‘arhatiyas’ instead of giving empty assurances, Prof Chandumajra said procurement was set to start in a little over a week and unless the government did not sort out all the pending issues with the centre it would cause untold misery to farmers of the State.
