End discrimination against Punjab, Sikhs, farmers: Badal

Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today asked Centre to end political, economic and religious discrimination against the state, the Sikh community and farmers as "matter of extreme national urgency".
Addressing the 27th Northern Zonal Council meeting here, Badal sought bailout for farmers affected by untimely rains by providing easy farm credit and procuring of damaged grains.
Terming his observations as "kadvi" but "sachhi baat" (bitter but honest talk), he said he was sharing "Mann Ki Baat" of the masses and hoped the present regime would be sensitive to sentiments of the people.
Ruing about agrarian crisis, he said high agriculture inputs and non-remunerative MSP had rendered agriculture a non-profitable venture even as the vagaries of weather have accentuated farmers' woes.

Highlighting the dip in quality of wheat grain due to adverse weather conditions, he demanded that no cut be applied to the price of the farmer's yield, and called for fixing of Minimum Support Price (MSP) as per recommendations of agricultural scientist M S Swaminathan, which, he stressed, could only save the country's farmers.
Badal also sought assured marketing of all crops and underscored the need for full compensation in case of natural calamities besides introducing crop insurance schemes.

He sought farm credit at 4 per cent for all agriculture and allied sectors and that animal husbandry and related sectors be treated at par with agriculture for income tax and bank loans.

Badal also said that any move to shift to Direct Transfer of Urea Subsidy to farmers would harm farmers/ agriculture in the long run.
He noted that the country was severely affected by the crisis in the agriculture sector and impressed upon the Northern Zonal council to unanimously recommend to Government of India (GoI) to come to the rescue of farmers in a big way.