Punjab AG has no business to tell apex court about switching to bajra cultivation: BJP

Chandigarh: State BJP president Sunil Jakhar, while hitting out at the AAP government in Punjab for abdicating its responsibility to give good governance, on Friday said the Advocate General had no business to tell the Supreme Court that Punjab will switch from paddy to bajra cultivation.

Addressing the media here, Jakhar said “it is not the prerogative of the Advocate General to make such a colossal decision for a primarily agrarian state like Punjab”.

“Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann needs to come up with a comprehensive strategy to address this pertinent crisis. On the contrary, Mann has turned the administration into a farce and a comedy.”

Jakhar said last year AAP minister Kuldeep Dhaliwal had announced that the Delhi model will be implemented and Rs 30 per hectare will be the cost of bio-decomposer.

According to a RTI report, the government in Delhi spent Rs two lakh on bio-decomposer, one lakh on jaggery and a whopping Rs 22 crore on advertisements.

The central government has since 2018 given Rs 1,370 crore in subsidy, which amounts to 50 percent for buying the machines in the state.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) in its investigation found that 1,125 machines were missing .This year the Central government has asked the state government to raise Rs 140 crore to get Rs 360 crore subsidy for the machines. However, the Mann government is still dilly dallying causing the farmers huge suffering.

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

Speaking on law and order, he said the state is suffering economically and politically as the liquor and drug mafia operate from the state’s jails under the patronage of the AAP.

The Chief Minister unfortunately has little regard for the truth. Last year he had promised in May 2022 that the state government will compensate for the deficit of the minimum support price (MSP) on maize, sunflower and moong.

However the farmers were left in the lurch as only 12 per cent were able to get their dues.