Badal urges for structural changes in farm policies

Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today asked the Centre to rope in agricultural experts and economists to suggest ways and means to arrest the steadily dwindling profits from agriculture.
He demanded the Centre to immediately go for structural changes in the policy related to agriculture.
Badal said any complacency on this count could further add to the woes of the farmers besides putting the national food security at risk.
He was replying to a query on Punjab being the second state after Maharashtra in terms of farmers' suicides as the Lok Sabha was informed.
Badal said the state government has been making all efforts to ensure welfare of farmers by giving them free power and other incentives from its "resources" to make farming at least self-sustainable.

"But the rights of the farmers, who are passing through severe agrarian crisis, must be safeguarded by a prompt intervention of the central government without any further delay," he said.

Unable to repay his loans, a farmer and his elderly mother committed suicide on Tuesday by consuming pesticide at Jodhpur village near Barnala allegedly when a commission agent, alongwith police and revenue officials, was trying to take possession of his land.
Meanwhile, he rubbished allegations of Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh about alleged involvement of SAD to fizzle out his foreign visit to Canada and USA.
"When Amarinder says anything just turn his statement the other way round to know the reality," he said.

Amarinder Singh had recently lodged a protest with the Canadian government over denial of permission to hold interactive meetings with the Punjabis in Toronto and Vancouver.