Punjab Cabinet ministers Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal and Gurmeet Singh Meet Hayer on Friday claimed that in order to hide their failure, the Centre is accusing Punjab of spreading pollution by burning stubble.
In a press conference at Punjab Bhawan, Dhaliwal and Meet Hayer claimed that the Centre is highlighting the issue of stubble burning to divert people’s attention from the unfortunate incident that took place in Gujarat.
Both ministers claimed that the Haryana chief minister is spreading misleading propaganda against Punjab on this issue of stubble burning.
They said as per the Central Pollution Control Board, Punjab’s air quality index is better than Haryana. The ministers said according to the data till date, many cities of Haryana were in the list of first 10 most polluted cities of the country, while from Punjab, no city is in the first 10 polluted city list. This clearly shows that stubble is being set on fire more in Haryana than in Punjab.
They also accused the lieutenant governor of Delhi of playing politics at the behest of the Centre on the issue of stubble burning who is writing letters to the chief minister of Punjab on this matter without any authority.
{{/usCountry}}They also accused the lieutenant governor of Delhi of playing politics at the behest of the Centre on the issue of stubble burning who is writing letters to the chief minister of Punjab on this matter without any authority.
{{/usCountry}}Dhaliwal and Meet Hayer alleged that stubble burning and crop residue management is a joint issue of many states of North India, but the Centre is playing politics instead of supporting Punjab in this matter.
Dhaliwal said due to the efforts of the Punjab government, cases of stubble burning have fallen down enormously. He said that sanctions for 42,342 subsidised machines for stubble management have been given to farmers. Apart from this, the agriculture department at the block level has given machines to small farmers for stubble management for free use.