Adopt Delhi model on crop insurance: AAP

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 12

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has slammed the Punjab as well as the Union Government for “depriving” the farmers of agriculture insurance scheme, accusing the successive state governments of appeasing big corporate houses at the expense of the farmers, who were already facing deep fiscal crisis.

Party leaders Kultar Singh Sandhwan, Meet Hayer and Jai Krishan Singh Rouri said both the state and Central governments had adopted an anti-farmer stance over the issue of crop insurance scheme, spelling doom for the beleaguered community.

The AAP leaders said depriving the farmers of the crop insurance scheme brought in by the Centre might be a compulsion for the state, but why it had not initiated steps to this effect at its own level during its over three-year tenure?

The AAP MLAs stressed that the government of Punjab should formulate a scheme on the lines of the Delhi model, where it paid Rs 20,000 per acre towards compensation to the farmers to offset the cross losses. The Congress had promised to pay a compensation of Rs 20,000 per acre to the affected farmers, but was shelling out a meagre compensation, ranging between Rs 2,000 and Rs 12,500 per acre, which, they claimed, was also not being paid on time.