BJP flays Punjab AG's statement on paddy cultivation in Supreme Court

Chandigarh, November 10

Punjab BJP president Sunil Jakhar said the Advocate General had no business to tell the Supreme Court that Punjab would switch from paddy to bajra cultivation.

Addressing the media here today at the party headquarters, Jakhar said, “It is not the prerogative of the Advocate General to take such a decision for an agrarian state like Punjab. Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann needs to come up with a strategy to address this crisis. On the contrary, Mann has turned the administration into a farce.”

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It is not the prerogative of the Advocate General to take such a decision for an agrarian state like Punjab. Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann needs to come up with a strategy to address this crisis. —Sunil Jakhar, Punjab BJP chief

Jakhar said last year, minister Kuldeep Dhaliwal had announced that the Delhi model would be replicated and bio-decomposer would be given at Rs 30 per hectare which has not been done.

“Since 2018, the central government has given Rs 1,370 crore in subsidy to buy stubble management machinery. The ED, in its investigation, has found that 1,125 machines were missing. This year, the Centre has asked the state government to raise Rs 140 crore to get Rs 360 crore subsidy for machines, however, the Mann government was still dilly-dallying causing the farmers huge losses.

Jakhar, while agreeing that the hazard of stubble burning should be tackled on a war footing, however, condemned the government for registering cases against farmers.