Giving a healing touch to the farmers who had suffered huge loss due to heavy rains across the state, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Thursday started the process to disburse compensation to the farmers with the State Government distributing Rs 40 crore on its maiden day.
 
Mann, addressing the gathering after kicking off the campaign to disburse the compensation for crop loss and damage to houses due incessant rains, said that he had himself distributed Rs six crore out of the total Rs 12.94 crore as compensation for 362 villages of Fazilka.
 
“This is not a day of happiness because I am here to compensate the farmers for the loss inflicted due to nature’s fury. However, this reflects the firm commitment of our government to bail out the people, especially the food growers, in this hour of crisis,” he said.
 
The Chief Minister said that after the incessant rains, he had extensively toured the affected areas to take stock of the situation at the ground level. “I am peeved to note the colossal loss suffered by the farmers due to inclement weather condition. Immediately after that, the State Government has ordered a comprehensive special girdawari to ascertain the loss suffered by the people,” he added.
 
“This special girdawari is a paradigm shift as compared to the previous government as earlier only lip service was made and no compensation was given to the people. During those regimes, girdawaris were done only on the basis of political affiliation and no genuine beneficiary was helped. Instead of fields, such girdawaris were done only in the houses of the affluent people,” he added.
 
“However, this time, a complete transparent mechanism has been adopted for conducting the girdawari in an efficient manner. I had promised that before Baisakhi the process to start compensation would start…It is a matter of great pride and satisfaction that this campaign has started today. The sole aim is to benefit the food growers of the country who have played a vanguard role in making the country self-reliant in food production,” he added.
 
The Chief Minister said that for the first time in the history of the state, the drive to disburse compensation has been started within 20 days of loss as none of the earlier governments had ever bothered about it.
 
“During the previous regimes, the compensation was so much delayed that most of the Ministers and MLAs used to forget which cheques of compensation they were disbursing. However, in the present government, the crops are still standing in fields but the compensation is in the bank accounts,” he added.
 
The Chief Minister said that the state government is fully with the beleaguered peasantry in this hour of deep crisis. He further said that in a major pro-farmer initiative, the state government has decided to freeze repayment of loans taken by the farmers from Primary Agricultural cooperative Societies. Bhagwant Mann said that the government will fully compensate the hapless farmers of the state for the losses suffered by them.
 
The Chief Minister said that instead of requesting the Centre for compensating the farmers for crop loss due to rains, the State Government will bear the entire expense of the burden being faced by the farmers due to the cut being imposed by Government of India (GOI) on damaged wheat grain.
 
“The farmers have suffered huge loss due to incessant rains but the indifferent Central Government has not done anything to bail them out. Rather, to rub salt into wounds of farmers, the Centre has imposed a cut on the damaged grains,” he added.
 
He vowed that every single penny of cut imposed on farmers will be extracted from the Centre with interest when the Centre will seek supply of grains in terms of wheat and paddy for the national food pool. “The Centre is completely indifferent towards Punjab and its farmers which cannot be tolerated at any cost,” he added.
 
Slamming SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal for issuing baseless statements against the State Government, the Chief Minister said that every decision is aimed at the well-being of the common man.
 
Training his guns against Sukhbir, Mann said that the person who himself wakes up at 12 noon can never imagine the benefits of changing the time of offices from 7:30 am to 2 pm.

Source - https://www.dailypioneer.com