UPA backstabbing Punjab farmers: Sukhbir Badal
Baba Bakala (Amritsar), Aug 2 (UNI)
Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal today strongly lashed at the Congress-led UPA government for its "blatant discrimination" against Punjab and other non-Congress states by denying them 'Drought Relief' despite 70 per cent deficient rains in Punjab.
He said that UPA should understand the fact that it was meant to govern the country not only Congress ruled states.
Speaking at a rally organiSed on the occasion of Rakhar Punya here today, Mr Badal said that Punjab was the first state to seek Rs 2030 crore from Calamity Relief Fund of the Cenral Government as the monsoons failed just at the time of sowing of Paddy crop.
He said that this raised the demand of Power and diesel to a record level. He said that though Punjab Government had already purchased power worth Rs 7000 crore, that was 10 per cent more than last year's peak demand but total failure of monsoon increased the power consumption putting a load on the entire electrical system.
He refuted said that Powercom was purchasing every unit of power available in the market and even at exorbitant rate of Rs 12 per unit but power was not available in the open market.