Punjab's new culture policy will be out by June end: Sidhu

The Punjab government is looking to promote the state's rich culture and heritage in a big way and a culture policy will be announced by the month end.
The soon-to-be-released culture policy aims to be youth centric to enable and inspire them to be aware of the extremely rich and glorious culture of the state.
Tourism and Cultural Affairs Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu today said here that it will be an open ended policy and the government would try to incorporate good suggestions in it.
He said it was important to apprise the youth about the cultural and historical heritage of Punjab so as to make sure that they do not remain oblivious to their enormously rich legacy and instead take pride in it.

He said it is the vision of the Chief Minister Amarinder Singh.
Chairing a marathon meeting of the experts hailing from the fields of art, literary, academic and cultural spheres to fine-tune the proposed culture policy, the minister said the policy would be finalised by the end of this month.

"But before that an exercise will be undertaken in which experts would be deployed to have interactions with the youth across the state regarding their views about the policy," he said.
"Possibly, we will also try to complete the shape of our tourism policy and announce it at the same time," he said.

"There are many countries in the world which run on tourism industry like in South East Asia, Switzerland," he said.
The minister claimed that thousands visit Taj Mahal daily, but its economic benefit does not go to Uttar Pradesh because a majority of the tourists stay in Rajasthan."
"Likewise, 1.25 lakh people visit Amritsar daily, mainly to see the Golden temple. But majority of those who arrive in the morning leave the same day because earlier we failed to take steps which would make them spend a few days in Amritsar," he said.
He said great emphasis would also be laid on forming a "cultural parliament" with a multi-layered structure with a chairman and 15 members under him besides having an organised mechanism in place at the district, Tehsil and village level.

Sidhu also said steps would be taken to bring the children of NRIs closer to their culture and traditions and helping them connect with their Punjabi roots.
Terming the proposed policy as a catalyst for cultural revolution, Sidhu made it clear that requisite finances would be made available to ensure that the policy does not derail.
The minister also underlined the fact that this aim can be achieved with proper marketing of the vast number of tourist destinations in the state which have exceptional historic and cultural value.
Sidhu also dwelled at length about the importance of Internet in the popularising the glorious heritage of Punjab as Internet is the most potent tool to carry forward and propagate an idea and according it the shape of a movement with the passage of time.

Later, when asked about farmers' issue, Sidhu said the Congress government in the state was committed to improve the lot of peasants.
"Not only are we talking about loan waiver, but we are also taking steps that need to be taken which will help farmers always remain debt free," he said.
"Today, the entire nation is saying farm loans should be waived. But nobody has cared to look into the cause how farmers are trapped under mounting debt.
"I have given some suggestions (to the state government)," he said.
Sidhu said that all farmers should be having bank account and all their payments whether from private money lenders or from other sources, should be made by cheques, so that farmers who are less educated are not exploited by anyone.

"Sir Chottu Ram Act says that farmers will not pay more than double of the principal amount he has borrowed. For example, if a farmer has borrowed a loan of Rs 1 lakh, after several years the amount goes up to several lakh due to compounding interest.
"The Act says that if he has taken Rs one lakh then he will not return more than double the principal amount," he said.