Centre favouring Maharashtra farmers over Punjab: Sidhu

Jalandhar, Aug 2 (UNI) Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Navjot Singh Sidhu today accused the Centre of discriminating against farmers of Punjab and favouring Maharashtra under the influence of Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar.

Talking to reporters here today, Mr Sidhu said peasantry of Punjab, which holds a record of producing 45 per cent of the total foodgrain in the country, is today in extremely bad shape and the Centre had failed to take any ''meaningful and effective'' effort to help them.

He said the Centre should treat farmers of Punjab on a par with those of Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh and provide similar package to Punjab.

He alleged Mr Pawar was only concerned about safeguarding interest of his home state and the Centre, as usual, was showing discrimination against Punjab.

He claimed that 80 per cent of the land of Punjab farmers was mortgaged against loans and small farmers of the state were having an average debt burden of Rs 41,000 per acre.

He stressed that the farmers in Punjab were under maximum debt burden as compared to farmers of most of the other states.

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