CM seeks Centre help to deal with ‘agrarian crisis’

Badal said that successive Congress governments at the Centre had made the issue a central subject when agriculture is actually a state subject.

Parkash Singh badal, Farmer suicides, Farmer Suicide Punjab, Punjab farmers, farmer crisis, India news

Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal

Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal has appealed for the Centre’s help in finding a solution to the agrarian crisis that has gripped Punjab. According to the National Crime Records Bureau, 24 farmers had committed suicide last year.

The chief minister’s statements came on a day when thousands of farmers began a five-day long dharna against farmer suicides in the state. Badal also blamed the Congress for the grim state of affairs. He said that successive Congress governments at the Centre had made the issue a central subject when agriculture is actually a state subject.

He supported this statement by claiming that the Centre now fixed the minimum support price (MSP), prices of diesel, pesticides, insecticides and other agriculture inputs. The state controls only electricity supply for tubewells for which the Punjab government is paying more than Rs 6,000 in subsidy.

To a question on using the Swaminathan formula for fixing price of agricultural produce, the Chief Minister said that he has been demanding the same for a long time and has always advocated this formula, but its the Centre which has to take the final call in this regard.

The chief minister was speaking to the media after laying the foundation stone of the Shaheed Baba Maharaj Singh ITI.

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