Punjab CM calls Centre’s farm package a ‘jumla’

Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Friday said that the announcements made by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman for the agriculture sector as nothing but a pack of “jumlas”. He added that the so-called economic package offered no immediate relief to the distressed farmers, who were battling the stress of handling two major crops one after the other in extremely tough conditions. With all the three tranches of the much-awaited economic package announced so far turning out to be a major disappointment for the targeted sections of society, it was clear that the Centre had failed to come to the rescue of the people who were struggling with the unprecedented Covid crisis and the resultant lockdown, said the Chief Minister.

The farmers need urgent interventions, and not socalled reform measures that have been long in the making and were not needed to be pushed through in haste at this critical juncture, said the Chief Minister, expressing serious concern over the lack of anything substantial in the announcements for the farmers. The CM said as one of the most affected states, agriculturally, Punjab needed support for the farmers during the wheat harvesting/procurement, which the Centre failed to deliver