The Centre today assured Punjab to treat Satluj on a par with river Ganga under the national mission for cleaning and development of rivers and gave an in-principle approval to allocate 100 per cent domestic coal to the land-locked state.
The Centre also gave its nod to extend existing project of four laning of road between Ludhiana and Talwandi Bhai upto the border district of Ferozepur, besides setting up of a regional centre of Central Institute of Freshwater Aquaculture (CIFA) to promote fish farming as part of crop diversification programme, according to an official release.
The assurances came during separate meetings of Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal with Union Ministers Uma Bharti, Piyush Goyal, Nitin Gadkari and Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh.
Badal also met Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Environment and Forests Minister Prakash Javadekar.
During his meeting with the Finance Minister, Badal sought a special financial package, including reimbursement of Rs 2,694 crore already repaid out of special term loan besides waiver of Rs 298 crore being demanded by the Ministry of Home Affairs on account of expenditure incurred on paramilitary forces deployed during the militancy period from 1980 to 1995.
The Chief Minister impressed upon him to release an amount of Rs 5,000 crore as non-plan grant for the current fiscal till the 14th Finance Commission report was out, it said.
Badal also urged Jaitley to immediately intervene in the settlement of outstanding dues of nearly Rs 10,000 crore of state procurement agencies pending with FCI since long time and sought constitution of an empowered committee in this regard to resolve this long pending issue once for all.
