<p>Upset with the Central government over the state not being given anything in the recently-announced Rs 1,900-crore package for states with deficient rainfall this year, the Punjab government on Thursday sought a package of Rs 2,380 crore for the food grain-surplus state.<br /><br /></p>.<p>Expressing his shock at Punjab being completely overlooked, chief minister Parkash Singh Badal, in a memorandum to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, sought his “urgent, immediate and effective intervention” for a “Central package of Rs 2,380 crore for the beleaguered Punjab farmers reeling under one of the worst monsoon failures in recent history”.Badal said he would meet the Prime Minister soon on the issue. <br /><br />He noted that there has been a crippling 65 per cent deficit in monsoon up to July 25. “The country at large and Punjab and the northwest region of the country are in the throes of one of the worst droughts since the 1960s. Worse, the forecast for the remaining stretch of the monsoon period holds out no hope for the kharif season. The timing of the rainfall deficit has dealt a crushing blow to the peasantry in Punjab as it hit them at the sowing season,” Badal said.<br /><br />“The 65 per cent rainfall deficit means that the farmers will have to incur an additional expenditure for sustaining the paddy crop transplanted in about 27.80 lakh hectares and other kharif crops like cotton and maize by using diesel to run pump-sets.”<br /><br />He said the additional expenditure on the farmers and the state government owing to the deficit monsoon would amount to Rs 2,380 crore. <br /><br />The chief minister said the treatment meted out to the leading agricultural state of the country has been shocking.<br /></p>
<p>Upset with the Central government over the state not being given anything in the recently-announced Rs 1,900-crore package for states with deficient rainfall this year, the Punjab government on Thursday sought a package of Rs 2,380 crore for the food grain-surplus state.<br /><br /></p>.<p>Expressing his shock at Punjab being completely overlooked, chief minister Parkash Singh Badal, in a memorandum to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, sought his “urgent, immediate and effective intervention” for a “Central package of Rs 2,380 crore for the beleaguered Punjab farmers reeling under one of the worst monsoon failures in recent history”.Badal said he would meet the Prime Minister soon on the issue. <br /><br />He noted that there has been a crippling 65 per cent deficit in monsoon up to July 25. “The country at large and Punjab and the northwest region of the country are in the throes of one of the worst droughts since the 1960s. Worse, the forecast for the remaining stretch of the monsoon period holds out no hope for the kharif season. The timing of the rainfall deficit has dealt a crushing blow to the peasantry in Punjab as it hit them at the sowing season,” Badal said.<br /><br />“The 65 per cent rainfall deficit means that the farmers will have to incur an additional expenditure for sustaining the paddy crop transplanted in about 27.80 lakh hectares and other kharif crops like cotton and maize by using diesel to run pump-sets.”<br /><br />He said the additional expenditure on the farmers and the state government owing to the deficit monsoon would amount to Rs 2,380 crore. <br /><br />The chief minister said the treatment meted out to the leading agricultural state of the country has been shocking.<br /></p>