Where is certified seed you promised to distribute, Sukhbir Badal asks Punjab govt

Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal on Thursday evening asked the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government to tell where was the certified wheat seed, which it had announced for distribution for sowing on four lakh acres of land, in the flood-hit areas of the state.

The SAD president, who initiated the distribution of 1,000 quintals of certified wheat seed in Dharamkot and 800 quintals of seed in Shahkot, said wheat sowing had commenced. He said the AAP government should distribute the promised wheat seed among farmers immediately or it would be of no use to them. He said the SAD had earlier distributed 1,000 quintals of seed in Ajnala and was committed to completing its “beej sewa” initiative by the end of the month. He said once this initiative was completed, the party would start distribution of wheat among the poor families in the flood-hit areas.

Asserting that the AAP government was failing distressed farmers, Badal said Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann had made a mockery of crop compensation by distributing Rs 1.16 crore under this head in Ajnala. “This amounts to giving a relief to farmers for 50 to 60 acres in more than a thousand villages in the constituency. It does not cover even a fraction of the flood-hit farmers,” he said.

Badal also spoke on how the AAP government had compounded the misery of farmers by not holding any flood prevention meetings, had not released any funds for strengthening the Shahpur-Kandi barrage and was not regulating the water flow in the Ranjit Sagar dam. He said these events led to additional flooding as the gates of the Shahpur barrage collapsed and sudden release of two lakh cusecs of water for three consecutive days from the Ranjit Sagar dam flooded thousands of acres of land.

Badal also initiated distribution of 800 trolleys of maize silage in Shahkot. Senior leaders present on the occasion included Teerath Singh Mahla, Rajwinder Singh Dharamkot, Sunny Gill, Bachittar Singh Kohar, Baldev Khaira, Sarabjit Jhinjher, Harjap Sangha and Rajkamal Bhullar.