Reliance agro project will change Punjab agriculture: CM

Jalandhar, Nov 16 (UNI) Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh today said that after onset of the diversification based Reliance Agro Project in the state, the income of the farmers is expected to record five fold increase by the next five years.

Addressing a public rally at Shahkot town about 35 Kms from here, Mr Singh said Reliance Industries Ltd had assured that after opting for diversification the farmers in the state would earn five times as compared to what they are getting by harvesting present wheat-paddy cycle.

He said the RIL project and other diversification oriented projects and programmes would completely transform life in rural areas of the state.

Elaborating on the farmer-friendly programmes being implemented by his government, Mr Singh said these had resulted in increase in crop production. For instance, the farmers had a bumper cotton crop this year after a long, he pointed out.

He said improvised BT cotton seeds and effective pesticides had brought a dramatic change and the production which was 7 lakh bales last year had registered a four fold increase to touch 28 lakh bales this year.

Diversification and fast industrialisation were the need of the hour and his government had done well on these fronts, Mr Singh said adding that opposition Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) was unduly opposing and criticising these projects and its opposition was politically motivated as these farmer-friendly projects had posed serious threat to support the SAD in its traditional rural vote bank.

He warned undue criticising to these people friendly projects might proved to be counter productive.

He said the 85 year old Akali party had already been 'broken' and what one saw today ''was a father-son and company which had no ranks, files and workers but only some ticket seekers''.

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