Fate of UPAs politically motivated food security ordinance uncertain: Parkash Singh Badal

NEW DELHI: Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal said that Congress led UPA Government’s politically motivated scheme of Food Security Ordinance was totally absurd due to which its fate was completely uncertain.

He said that due to lackluster performance of UPA government it was totally unsure whether it would be able to get this ordinance ratified in the Parliament or not. “The ongoing atta-dal scheme of the Punjab government, has been now copied by UPA,” he said. According to him Punjab was the first state of the country to implement this pro-poor scheme.

Terming the center policies as against the interest of Punjab farmers, the chief minister said that the constant hike in input costs of agriculture by the centre coupled with the decreasing margin of profits has broken the backbone of the Punjabi farmers. Mr Badal said that today Punjab’s farmers were reeling under a huge debt of Rs 32,000 crore due to the wrong policies of centre.

The chief minister said that owing to all these reasons the state government has embarked a major program of crop diversification in the state to supplement the income of farmers on one and to bring them out of the rut of wheat and paddy circle. However he said that all these efforts of state government could only be successful if the Union government provides Minimum Support Price (MSP) along with proper purchase mechanism to alternate crops like maize and basmati.

On the issue of displacement of Punjabi farmers from the Kutch region of Gujarat, Mr Badal said that efforts were being made to get their problems solved from the Gujarat government. “The state government is committed for safeguarding the interests of these Punjabi farmers who have played a pivotal role in socio-economic development of Gujarat,” he said.