Chandigarh, Sep 27 Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) President Sukhbir Badal on Saturday said Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann had enacted a drama in a specially convened session of the Vidhan Sabha to “hide his abject failures in releasing any money for flood-hit farmers and labourers”.
The Akali Dal chief was touring most severe flood hit areas in the Ajnala constituency during the course of which he flagged off 200 trolleys of maize silage for 100 flood-affected villages.
Badal told the media that instead of using the special session of the Vidhan Sabha to broaden the scope of compensation to include all crop damaged by floods and ensuring compensation is not limited to five acres per farmer and increased to Rs 50,000 per acre, the Chief Minister chose to waste crores to indulge in a propaganda exercise.
“The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has become the first ruling party in the history of Punjab to troop to the well of the House to protest against the Central government. This was done to shift the responsibility for providing for the flood-affected farmers, labourers and house owners to the Centre. It’s very well to demand adequate compensation from the Centre but the AAP government should first disburse the Rs 12,000 crore State Disaster Response Fund in its possession to the flood hit and then ask the Centre for additional funds,” he said.
Condemning the manner in which compensation norms were being twisted to deny fair compensation to farmers, Badal said “first of all compensation has been fixed at only Rs 20,000 per acre for crop damage. Farmers are not likely to get this figure also as Revenue Department staff has been asked to give only 25 per cent and 50 per cent damage claims which will limit the compensation amount between Rs 2,000 to Rs 5,000 per acre only”.
Badal also demanded that accountability for mismanagement of the operations of the Ranjit Sagar dam and the Shahpur barrage be fixed at the very top, instead of targeting junior level engineers. He said it should be disclosed as to who allowed water to accumulate for 20 days during the monsoon season before it was released in one go after crossing the danger mark.
“This abrupt release of 2.5 lakh cusecs of water for three days simultaneously destroyed crops in lakhs of acres of land,” he said. Badal said the gates of the Shahpur barrage also collapsed due to criminal negligence on the part of the AAP government.
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