Punjab finance minister Parminder Singh Dhindsa on Friday demanded special projects for the state deliberated in the pre-budget consultation meeting with Union finance minister Arun Jaitley in Delhi.
Dhindsa also requested the Centre to provide Rs 100 crore for intervention to check the increasing menace of drug abuse, besides another Rs 100-crore union budgetry allocation to combat cancer in Punjab, a spokesman said here.
The Punjab FM also requested the Centre to incentivise the cultivation of alternative crops such as maize and basmati to ensure diversification in agriculture in the state, fixing the minimum support price (MSP) for basmati, creating 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.
