Badal writes to Modi, wants immediate relief for farmers

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 24

Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to “immediately” come to the rescue of farmers who had suffered extensive damage to their crops following unseasonal rains and other vagaries of weather.

In a letter to the Prime Minister, Badal drew his attention towards the extremely sensitive issue to bail the farmers out from the current crisis. He said there was a need to recast the government policies drastically to regenerate farm economy.

Badal said the farmers faced “a tragedy of frightening proportions” because of natural calamities on the one hand and a long series of disastrous and anti-farmer policies of successive Congress governments at the Centre over the past 67 years on the other”.

“For more than half a century, the brave and patriotic peasantry answered every distress call of the nation and always took pride in sacrificing everything, including the priceless natural resources, soil fertility and water. Punjabi farmers always came to the rescue of the nation and saved it from hunger and starvation. But now, it is repayment time for the country. For the first time, the farmer needs his country to stand by him in his hour of extreme adversity and distress,” he said.

The Chief Minister has demanded a comprehensive relief package for the farmers whose crop had been affected by recent rains, hailstorms and windy conditions.

He said the norms for providing relief under such conditions also needed to be changed and brought in line with current ground realities and economic compulsions faced by the farmers.

The Chief Minister said no cut should be applied to the price of the farmers’ yield on this account because he was not responsible for this adverse effect caused by natural calamity that was beyond his control.

Badal said there had been a fall in the overall yield of crop this year. As this too had been caused by reasons beyond a farmer’s control, he should not be made to suffer for this. For this, the farmer should be paid adequate bonus to off-set the loss in yield.