English
Amarinder bats for crop’ Fatehgarh Sahib (Punjab), Nov 17 (PTI) Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh Saturday emphasised the need to bring synergy among the departments of cooperation and animal husbandry and dairy development to boost the crop diversification programme across the state.
Addressing a public gathering after laying the foundation stone of the Verka Mega Dairy plant here, the chief minister exhorted farmers to come out of the rut of wheat-paddy cycle and shift to dairying as allied farming.
He said that with the ever increasing production of milk, more such milk plants would be required across the state to give further impetus to dairy development, thereby helping the farmers who were facing acute agrarian crisis owing to low returns due to nearly stagnated minimum support prices (MSP) and ever increasing costs of inputs like seeds, fertilisers, pesticides, etc.
The plant is being built at a cost of Rs 358 crore and will be completed in three phases. The chief minister also inaugurated the Verka Mohali Dairy as a ‘Fully Automated Fermented Unit’ at a cost of Rs 100 crore through a remote control. The unit will have additional milk processing capacity of 2.5 lakh litre, 2.5 lakh litre of lassi and 100 MT of Dahi (curd) per day. This project has been completed in 18 months.
As a part of Cooperative Week celebrations from November 14-20, the chief minister said that the first phase of the Verka Mega Dairy plant would be completed at a cost of Rs 138 crore, with milk processing capacity of 2 lakh litres per day, in 18 months with direct and indirect employment generation of 250 and 32,000 persons respectively.
The second phase would be completed in 2022, with additional milk processing facilities for 3 lakh litre per day at a cost of Rs 120 crore, and direct and indirect employment generation of 250 and 48,000, respectively.
Subsequently, in the third phase, additional milk processing facilities at a cost of Rs 100 crore for 6 lakh litre per day would be added in 2024, which would have milk drying capacity of 60 MT per day, he said. Lambasting the anti-farmer organisations and other political parties which have unleashed false propaganda against the government over procurement of paddy in the state, the chief minister said that out of 160 lakh tonnes of paddy procured till date, 157 lakh tonnes had already been lifted and payments had been made to the farmers. The remaining paddy having high moisture content over and above the prescribed limit would also be soon lifted by the procurement agencies, he said. He said the Akalis were making an issue out of non-issue just to register their existence as the people had already rejected them and now their own senior party leadership too had deserted them.
The chief minister further criticised these self styled leaders of so called pro-farmer organisations for deliberately instigating some farmers to burn paddy stubble in the open farms despite strict guidelines of the National Green Tribunal (NGT). The law for the common man and even for chief minister was the same and everybody was bound to abide the law of the land, he said.
The chief minister said he had already vehemently pleaded with the Prime Minister for allowing Rs 100 per quintal as incentive to the farmers, over and above the MSP on paddy to farmers who abstain from burning paddy, but there has been no response to his plea so far.
Chiding the Delhi government, the chief minister asked how Punjab could be responsible for all the pollution in the national capital when there was no such pollution in Chandigarh from where it crosses over to Delhi.
These leaders should refrain from indulging in blame game and politicking over such sensitive issues and should rather suggest some concrete solutions to tackle this problem, he added.
This is published unedited from the PTI feed.
