Badal urges Centre to find solution to agrarian crisis

Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today appealed to the centre for finding a suitable solution to the agrarian crisis and said that immediate steps need to be taken in this regard.
He said this would help in checking the farmer suicides and agriculture would become a profitable venture.
On Punjab government's role in finding a solution to the agrarian crisis, the Chief Minister said that agriculture used to be a state subject but due to wrong policies of successive Congress government's at the centre, it has now become a centre's subject.
From fixing the MSP, to prices of diesel, pesticides, insecticides, and other such agriculture inputs, everything is now fixed by the central government, Badal said.

He said the state only controls electricity supply for tube-wells for which Punjab government is already paying more than Rs 6,000 crore in subsidy.
On using the Swaminathan formula for fixing the price of agricultural produce, the Chief Minister said that he has been demanding the same for a long time and has always advocated this formula, but its the central government which has to take the final call.

Addressing a gathering here, Badal said that Technical Education is very important for the overall development of any country.
He said that sadly, the previous UPA government did not work in this field and after Narendra Modi took over as Prime Minister, he formed a 10-member sub-group on technical education.

He said he is the convener of the sub-group, which has been formed with the sole motive of giving much needed boost to technical education in the country.
The Chief Minister further said that in India, only around 12 per cent people are technically educated, whereas in South Korea its 96 per cent, in Japan 80 per cent and in Germany, its 75 per cent.
He said to make India the most developed country in the world, technical education is imperative.
He said that this would not only lead to development but would also help in keeping a check on the problem of unemployment.

Badal said that his government has taken several steps for promoting technical education in the state.
Taking a dig at the Congress, the CM said that it has always used the divide and rule policy.
The Shiromani Akali Dal and Bharatiya Janata Party have always worked for maintaining communal harmony in the state, he added.