Punjab finance minister Parminder Singh Dhindsa, on Friday, demanded special projects for the state in the pre-budget consultation meeting of Union finance minister Arun Jaitley in Delhi.
Dhindsa also requested the Centre to provide `100 crore for interventions to check the increasing menace of drug abuse, besides another `100 crore allocation to combat cancer in Punjab, a spokesperson here said.
The finance minister also requested the Centre to incentivise the cultivation of alternative crops like maize and basmati to ensure diversification in agriculture, fix the minimum support price (MSP) for basmati, create an efficient marketing mechanism for procurement of alternative crops through a designated agency and a regional centre of the Indian Council for Agriculture Research (ICAR) in Punjab.
