Centre to extend help to Punjab, Haryana for cotton crop loss: Birender Singh

KHATKAR KALAN: Union Minister Birender Singh today said the Centre will extend help to cotton growers of Punjab and Haryana for their damaged crop after it received the details of the crop loss.

"Union Government will extend helping hand to Punjab and Haryana after they submit the details of crop loss," the Union Rural Development Minister said here while addressing a rally in the ancestral village of Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagat Singh on martyr's birth anniversary today.

Cotton growers of Punjab and Haryana have suffered massive damage to their crops because of whitefly attack.

Lashing out at previous UPA led government at the Centre, he alleged that farmers' land was acquired at "throwaway" prices in order to hand it over to big corporates for setting up SEZs.

But it was NDA government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi that took several steps to safeguard the interest of peasants, he said.

The minister said martyrs' like Bhagat Singh and historic figures like Bhimrao Ambedkar, the key architect of the Constitution, were national treasures whose memories to be nurtured for future generations.

He said if the state government forms a cluster of area around this historic village (Khatkar Kalan), the Centre would include it under Shayama Prasad Mukherjee Urban Mission under which Rs 50 to 55 crore would be spent to make this area world-class.

Laying the foundation stone of 24-hour water supply scheme and paying obeisance at the ancestral home of the Shaheed-e-Azam, the minister said he was feeling proud to be part of the development of this village.