Chandigarh, November 9
Condemning the Punjab government for not providing timely funds to the farmers and agricultural societies of the state for the purchase of subsidized agricultural machinery, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Punjab senior leader and MLA Aman Arora has written a letter to Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi; demanding immediate release of the amount and outstanding subsidy for purchase of machinery.
Aman Arora said, “The farmers and agricultural societies of Punjab had submitted more than 61,000 applications to the Agriculture Department for procurement of various machines for sowing of crops and disposal of crop residues, but these applications have been gathering dust in the offices of the Agriculture Department for a long time. However, the farmers of Punjab are being forced to burn paddy straw due to lack of machinery.”
In the letter written to Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi, Aman Arora disclosed that Punjab government claims to provide subsidy to the farmers and agricultural societies for the purchase of agricultural machinery; but thousands of farmers and agricultural cooperative societies in Punjab are waiting for government money to buy subsidized agricultural machinery. He said that the farmers of the state had applied for subsidy for the purchase of 1,64,800 machines by submitting about 61,000 applications, out of which only about 9,300 applications were accepted and only 25,500 machines were approved by the Punjab government.
The AAP leader alleged that the Agriculture department of the Punjab government neither released the money as per the demand of the farmers nor delivered the total purchased machines to them. Due to this, the farmers of Punjab were being forced to set fire to the paddy straw. Aman Arora further said that the farmers of Punjab were not deliberately setting fire to the straw; but due to incompetence and poor management of the government. The smoke created by burning straw is not only disturbing the common man, but also the farmers themselves are falling prey to the diseases caused by the smoke, he added.
Arora said that out of the subsidy of Rs 346 crore sanctioned by the Union Government for the year 2021-22, only Rs 106 crore subsidy has been provided by the Punjab government to the farmers, panchayats, CHCs and cooperative societies. He said that due to the poor performance of the Punjab government during the last few years, the money released by the Centre for the agriculture sector has been going back without any utilization. For example, the central subsidy amount of Rs 45 crore was returned even during the last financial year and such action needs to be stopped.
He also demanded from the Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi that the pending applications of the farmers for the purchase of agricultural machinery should be accepted immediately and besides releasing the money for the purchase of machinery; the outstanding subsidy amount should also be released.
