Harsimrat Kaur Badal demands urgent supply of urea to Punjab

Former Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal attacked the Punjab government for depleting farmers with urea required for wheat crops. She said that the Congress government remains idle when the farmers are facing hardship.

New Delhi: Former Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal today asked the Central and Punjab governments to hasten the supply of fertilizers, particularly urea in Punjab. Badal stated that any further delay in supply of urea to farmers could have catastrophic results and lead to a fifteen per cent decline in wheat yield.

Indian Railways announced the resumption of rail services on November 23 after farmers union agreed on lifting blockades. However, the prolonged halt in rail services depleted the farmers of their raw materials including coal and urea.

Harsimrat Badal said urea was first demanded for wheat crop in mid-November to ensure high yield. She pointed out that it is not ascertained that farmers would receive 8 lakh tonnes of ureas as demanded.It is unfortunate that the Congress government has been remaining idle similar to Chief Minister Captian Amarinder Singh despite of the farmers' turmoil. Even though Urea is available at the NFL plant in Panipat and it can be brought through roads, the CM remains oblivious to it, according to Badal.

She urged the Chief Minister to talk to the Centre and ensure urea is supplied to the state in a week and wheat crops are not adversely affected. In addition, there should also be arrangements for supplying the fertilizers through road.

Read:Rail services resume in Punjab, says Piyush Goyal

The supply in NFL plants at Bathinda and Ropar has also exhausted as farmers were forced to purchase urea at higher rates. They also purchased it from Haryana and Rajasthan, incurring them to huge losses, Badal stated. She said cooperative societies had already distributed 50,000 tonnes of urea and did not have any more stock pending with them.

Keeping all these issues in mind, Harsimrat Badal asked the Chief Minister to urge the Prime Minister on the issue on an emergency basis. She said the Chief Minister has already failed in conveying to the Centre that the rail tracks had been cleared by the farmer organizations more than two weeks back. “Now there should not be any further delay in supply of fertilizer to Punjab,” she said.

Badal said the Central Government should ensure that the farmers' grievances are addressed. “Farmers should not get an impression that they are being victimized for rising up against the central Farm Laws”, she said.

“The Union Government should favourably consider the demand of farmers including government purchase of food grains at minimum support price”, she added.