Govt, opposition trade barbs over paddy stubble burning
CHANDIGARH:Leaders of the principal opposition party Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) and the treasury benches on Monday traded barbs over the issue of stubble burning on opening day of the Haryana assembly session.
Speaking on the calling attention motion on the issue by some INLD MLAs, leader of opposition Abhay Chautala said it was shocking that the ruling BJP was hitting the farmers who were already facing several hardships. Other party MLAs, including Jaswinder Singh Sandhu, Ramchand Kamboj and Balwan Singh Daulatpuria, also spoke on the issue and termed the government’s efforts as “too little” and its action as anti-farmers.
“It is shocking that the government is fining the poor farmers and lodging criminal cases against them for burning paddy stubble. The government has now threatened to suspend panches and sarpanches if stubble burning is reported in their villages. Would you remove the chief minister if there is some irregularity in some department ?” Abhay said.
He reacted sharply to BJP’s Sohana MLA Tejpal Tawar when he asked the former that if previous governments of the Congress or INLD had done anything close to what ruling BJP government was doing. “Aapne kabhi kheti ki hai?,Aap ne kabhi dhaan bija hai ,” he questioned Tawar if he had any experience of farming.
On this, agriculture minister Dhankar told Abhay that it was a serious issue concerning farmers and it was expected of him that the opposition did some constructive criticism instead of settling political scores. Though Dhankar gave a detailed reply on the motion, Abhay termed as “a mere lecture’’.
Heated arguments went on for some time as the treasury benches said the politics of lies was over and the BJP was doing politics based on issues and facts.
Stating that coordinated efforts were being made by the agriculture department, environment department and new and renewable energy department (HAREDA) to solve the problem, Dhankar said 944 straw management implements had already been distributed to the farmers as on October 16.
“A total of 18,000 hectares of land would be covered for demonstration of crop residue management covering 15 major paddygrowing districts for practical knowledge of the farmers for which ₹7.2 crore would be spent during this crop harvesting season,” Dhankar said.
“Presently, a biomass power project of 79.91 megawatt (MW) capacity had been installed in the state and three projects of 25 MW capacity were selling power to the state grid on preferential tariff fixed by the Haryana Electricity Regulatory Commission (HERC),” the agriculture minister said.