PUNJAB

Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann announced to spruce up government healthcare across the state for providing state-of-the-art medical treatment and diagnostic Services to people.

During the run up for Elections, we had promised a guarantee of quality healthcare to the people and no stone is being left unturned for this noble cause, said the Chief Minister, addressing after dedicating newly-built mother and child care hospital.

The Chief Minister said that strenuous efforts are being made to equip the government hospitals with the ultramodern facilities. Likewise, he said that a massive recruitment drive has been embarked to fill all the vacant government posts in the Health Department.

The Chief Minister envisioned that the newly-constructed Mother and Child Hospitals will act as a Catalyst to impart quality healthcare to the pregnant Women and newly born child. He said that the move is aimed to ensure that people get quality health services in these hospitals. He said that more such hospitals will be constructed across the State in coming days.

The announcement was made by Revenue and Rehabilitation Minister Aruna Chaudhary and Agriculture-notes-for-state-psc-exams”>Agriculture Minister Randeep Singh Nabha in a joint press conference here at Punjab Bhawan. Both the Cabinet Ministers said that the pink ballworm had caused severe damage to crops in Mansa, Sangrur, Bathinda, Sri Muktsar Sahib and Barnala districts and to compensate these farmers their government is releasing this amount of Rs 416 crore. They said that 10 percent of the amount would be provided to the cotton picking workers as relief and the compensation amount will be sent in the accounts of Deputy Commissioners before Diwali and the District Administration will directly transfer the aid in the bank accounts of farmers.

The two ministers said that the Punjab Government is standing firmly with the farmers and every step would be taken for their welfare.

Giving details of the distribution of compensation, the Ministers said that this time around 7 lakh 51 thousand acres of cotton was sown in the cotton belt and out of this around four lakh acres had been damaged by the pink ballworm. Compensation was being paid at the rate of Rs. 2,000 per acre for 26 to 32 percent loss, Rs. 5400 per acre for 33 to 75 percent loss and Rs.12,000 per acre for 76 to 100 percent loss which is the highest ever amount. Earlier, farmers were being paid Rs 8,000 per acre and pickers 5 percent of the amount for crop failure.

According to the Cabinet Ministers, 151335 acre crop in Mansa district has been damaged from 76 to 100 percent an amount of Rs.181,60,21,050 is being released for this district. Similarly, in Sangrur 145 acres suffered loss from 26 to 32 per cent, 3693 acres 33 to 75 per cent and 180 acres 76 to 100 per cent loss and provision of Rs. 224,01,328 has been made for this. He said that in Bathinda district, 683 acres have suffered loss from 26 to 32 percent, 85 acres 33 to 75 percent and 188308 acres 76 to 100 percent loss for which compensation of Rs. 226,15,23,700 is being paid for Bathinda. In Sri Muktsar Sahib district, 1906 acres crop have been damaged by 26 to 32 per cent, 7922 acres by 33 to 75 per cent and 50 acres by 76 to 100 per cent for which an amount of Rs. 4,71,90,800 is being released.

The seems to be laying emphasis on reopening AttariWagah trade route with Pakistan. In the recent past, two ministers have taken up the issue with the Centre.

The trade between both the countries stopped in August 2019 after the abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu & Kashmir.

Similarly, Minister for Investment Promotion Anmol Gagan Maan while demanding a special industrial package from the Centre had laid emphasis on opening trade routes with Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq.

Punjab needs a comprehensive crop diversification plan at the micro level, involving a block or a cluster of blocks with similar conditions. The plan should be based on water availability, Niche crops and Marketing facilities in that geographical unit. The plan must be spread over5-10 years for its implementation, prioritising the areas to be brought under it each year on the basis of severity of water scarcity. This is expected to be a win-win situationfor conserving our https://exam.pscnotes.com/natural-Resources“>Natural Resources as well as sustainingfarmers income.

A three-pronged strategy needs to be formulated for preparing a comprehensive crop diversification plan for the state at the micro level, involving a block or a cluster of blocks with similar conditions. The plan needs to be based on (i) water availability, (ii) niche crops and (iii) related marketing facilities in that particular geographical unit.

Water availability

The Water Resources in a particular geographical unit may include groundwater or canal water or both, apart from rain/runoff water and treated wastewater. The water balance of each unit needs to be worked out so as to ascertain the water availability for Agriculture-notes-for-state-psc-exams”>Agriculture and other sectors against the available supplies. Based on the water availability and its quality, some blocks may need to diversify from paddy/wheat, whereas others may not. Those units with highest level of negative water balance could be chosen for the crop diversification plan on priority basis. For example, estimates indicate that five blocks in Sangrur, two each in Barnala and Jalandhar and one each in Patiala, Hoshiarpur and Moga are expected to have the water table below 165 feet by 2030. These blocks need to be taken up first for crop diversification based on this strategy. Further, these assessments will also determine the extent of area in each block to be diversified from paddy/wheat and/or spring maize for sustained use of groundwater.

Niche crops

The blind recommendation of replacing paddy with maize may not be a good option for crop diversification across the state. Several geographical units have been growing alternative crops in smaller pockets over the years peas in Hoshiarpur and Tarn Taran, moong bean in Jagraon (Ludhiana), celery (Amritsar), kinnow (Fazilka and Hoshiarpur) etc. with well-established markets. The area under Cotton, another important crop in southwest Punjab, has been declining due to cultural and marketing issues. The area under these niche crops can be expanded further by providing improved cultural practices including high- yielding cultivars, value addition techniques and further strengthening of the prevailing marketing facilities. Also, some traditional crops of certain regions bajra, jowar, guar could be revisited keeping in mind their growing demand in the market. Arhar, an important pulse crop with huge demand in the country and being imported every year, could find a place in the state with improved harvesting varieties being developed by PAU.

Value addition

The area under these niche/alternate crops has to be increased at the cost of paddy. To compete with paddy, these crops have to be equally remunerative or even better. This can be possible not only by developing high-yielding cultivars but also developing the cultivars suitable for post-harvesting value addition. The government has taken initiatives to take the farmers out of the crop-based income system and encourage them for value addition. Thus, creating Infrastructure facilities for value addition is the need of the hour. For example, kinnow juice extraction facility could be created in such units to process the fruit instead of selling it at throwaway prices. The same could be true for potato and other crops.

A comprehensive crop diversification plan must be spread over 5-10 years for its implementation, prioritising the areas to be brought under the plan each year on the basis of severity of water scarcity. This is expected to be a win-win situation for conserving our natural resources as well as sustaining agricultural productivity and farmers income.

Punjabs area under direct seeding of rice (DSR) has increased to 6.01lakh hectares(12.02 lakh acres) or close to 20% of its total under the water-guzzler crop, yet fallen short of the target of 10 lakh hectares.

The only consolation for the farmers is that paddy transplanting by DSR has increased almost 20% from last year. Otherwise, total paddy (which includes parmal and basmati) was grown in 30.48 lakh hectares this year, a decline from last years 31.49 lakh hectares. Those 1 lakh hectares shifted to , maize, and other crops, 53,000 hectares to cotton alone, which now covered 3.04 lakh hectares against last years 2.51 lakh hectares.

Given the availability of cheap labour and rain, thestate Agriculture-notes-for-state-psc-exams”>Agriculture departmentclaimed that the goal of bringing 10 lakh hectares under DSR by weaning the farmers away from conventional method was always unrealistic. Transplantation done, the department on Wednesday released the figure of 6.01 lakh hectares under DSR (19.70%of the area under paddy and basmati), which is the highest ever that Punjabs remote sensing centre has measured. This saved 15% water.

To create alternative measures to curb the stubble burning in the state, Punjab Agriculture-notes-for-state-psc-exams”>Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Department has drafted an action plan worth Rs 350 crore for providing straw management machinery at heavy subsidized rates.

Wherein, co-operative societies and other groups can avail subsidy of 80 per cent, on the other side, individual farmers will get 50 per cent subsidy.

Sharing the details, Punjab Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Minister Gurmeet Singh Khuddian said that the Department has submitted the action plan of Rs 350 crore to the Central Government to provide funds for the current year and over 20,000 machines would be made available on subsidy to individuals for crop residue management and 1000 Custom Hiring Centers would also be established.

Apart from this, the Department would also launch an Information Education and Communication campaign to educate and train farmers about the available technologies for management of crop residues as the Punjab Government is proactively taking steps to address the problem of stubble burning in the State.

The major demands of businessmen include upgradation of techonolgy, transparency in reimbursement of incentives and preference to micro small and medium enterprises (MSME) in allotment of land in big industrial projects.

The clause for investing 50% of the original fixed capital should be abolished and benefits should be available to any Industry regardless of the amount of fixed capital. The government should also encourage intra-state competition, not competition within the state,

The government should extend one-time settlement scheme to all disputes under new Industrial Policy. The provision for mandatory infrastructural upgrade at the Focal Points and industrial areas should also be kept.

The Cabinet today approved the creation of a special purpose vehicle (SPV) for operations and maintenance of large multi-village surface water supply schemes across the state.

The move aims at ensuring supply of potable water on a long term sustainable basis in rural areas of water quality-affected districts. This first-of-its-kind SPV in India will be a utility company, Punjab Rural Water (Utility) Company, under the Water supply and sanitation Department.

The Cabinet also accorded approval to opening an account in the name of the SPV, with seed of Rs 25 crore allocated from the World Bank funds (64 per cent) and state budget (36 per cent), to support its functioning in the initial five years of operations. The allocation will help meet the shortfall in revenue collection, if any, to fulfil the contractual obligations of the SPV and its administrative expenses.