‘Central Govt discriminatory against Punjab’

Although the state government has failed to provide adequate aid to the people in flood affected areas, the state government on Friday passed the buck to the union government by accusing the later discriminatory against Punjab as far as aid for flood affected areas was concerned. “It is a normal practice that in case of any natural calamity including flood, a team of centre visits of the affected area and announce a special package to deal with the situation, but in case of Punjab, nothing was done and even state congress leadership failed to raise its voice to demand special package”, Bikramjit Singh Majithia, Punjab Cabinet Minister, who was here to flag off the relief material, collected by the district wing of Youth Akali Dal, told reporters.

Be it in Bihar or Uttar Pradesh, whenever there was any natural calamity, union government doled out funds in bulk, but in case of Punjab, in spite of a Punjabi Prime Minister, nothing was done, Majithia said while justifying his allegation of centre’s being discriminatory against Punjab.

Punjab’s farmers, who always bailed out the centre from a serious food crisis, by contributing more than 70 per cent to central pool of food grains, were ignored by the centre during crisis, he added.

Revealing the steps taken by the state government for flood relief, Minister said that the state cabinet has decided to give one lakh as compensation for every death due to flood and deferred the recovery of agriculture loan of the farmers belonging to affected areas.