Rana Gurjeet’s SOS to PM, political parties to save Punjab from ‘disaster’

Rana Gurjeet appealed to all political parties, including the Congress, SAD, BJP and the AAP, to rise above their partisan considerations and draw a common minimum programme for agriculture, industrial growth, employment generation

Chandigarh : Punjab technical education minister Rana Gurjeet Singh on Tuesday sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s personal intervention to save Punjab, which he says is at the “cusp of disaster”.

Punjab technical education minister Rana Gurjeet Singh on Tuesday sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s personal intervention to save Punjab, which he says is at the “cusp of disaster”.

Rana also appealed to all political parties, including the Congress, SAD, BJP and the AAP, to rise above their partisan considerations and draw a common minimum programme for agriculture, industrial growth, employment generation, etc to save the agrarian state irrespective of which party or combination forms the government.

In a letter addressed to the Prime Minister, he said: “If these issues are not addressed right now, we will be staring at an imminent disaster, which will have far reaching and wide-ranging ramifications, not just for the state, but for the whole nation.”

The minister said that agriculture was once the backbone of Punjab’s economy, but the same progressive and well-to-do farmers are now debt-ridden and can hardly survive and sustain with agriculture as the land holdings as majority of the farmers in Punjab, about 70%, have less than five acres of land. He suggested the revival of the cooperative movement to enable the small farmers to pool in their resources for efficient production.

Drawing the PM’s attention to depleting water table in the state, Rana Gurjeet said it was the most serious threat to Punjab’s survival as scientific studies have warned that the state runs the risk of turning into a desert within 20 to 25 years as groundwater is fast depleting. “The water table has touched 300 feet. And the rate it is going down, it may go well below 600 feet in next 20-25 years. Punjab will turn into a desert…once there is no water, there will be mass unemployment,” he warned.

The minister said one way to save the situation is introduce drip irrigation, which saves about 50% water, and states like Maharashtra and Telangana have brought 50 to 80% area under the drip irrigation.

He also touched upon the corresponding decline in industrial growth, suggesting to the central government to incentivise the border area for industrial growth through measures like tax holiday and freight equalization. This can be done on the pattern of the ‘Development of North Eastern Region’ (DONER) scheme where North-Eastern states because of their border with China and Bangladesh are getting massive incentives and 10% of the Union budget allocation is made towards it,” he said, besides suggesting introduction of a skill development programme for youth in Punjab.