Majithia asks Amarinder to join hands for higher paddy MSP

Chandigarh, Oct 23 (UNI) Youth Akali Dal (YAD) patron Bikram Singh Majithia today challenged former chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh to join the struggle of the Punjab farmers against the Union Government for getting MSP on paddy raised to Rs 1300 per quintal and bonus enhanced to Rs 300 quintal.

"Capt Singh join hands with the farmers rather than showing his hollow concern for the farmers, by confessing that MSP for paddy was 'admittedly low' ", Mr Majithia said here.

Referring to Amarinder's flying visits to selected mandis of the State yesterday, the YAD patron said that this whole drama of fixing MSP of paddy below the Commission for Costs and Agricultural Prices (CCAP's) recommended price of Rs 1000 per quintal and then granting bonus in peanuts to farmers had exposed the ' anti farmers and anti Punjab' face of Congress Party.

He said that Union Government was bent upon punishing the states farmers for voting out the corrupt Congress from the power in Punjab and was deliberately tailoring the policies to push farmers further in the debt trap.

Mr Majithia said that the central debt waiver scheme was custom-made to keep majority of Punjab farmers out of it. Now FCI, a Union Government procurement agency that used to procure over 40 per cent of produce, had procured only 1.3 per cent of procured paddy till date, on the express directions of he Congress leadership, he claimed.

"Now to further penalise Punjab's farmers, the Union government was creating the shortage of DAP for the wheat sowing operations", he added.

UNI HS VN1738