'Drama to avoid failure': Badal hits out at Punjab CM over alleged flood compensation delay

Ajnala (Amritsar), Sep 27 (PTI) Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal on Saturday accused Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann of "enacting a drama" in a specially convened session of the state assembly to "hide his abject failure" to release money for flood-hit farmers.

The SAD president was touring the flood-hit areas in this constituency during the course of which he flagged off 200 trolleys of maize silage for 100 villages.

In a statement issued here, Badal said the chief minister should have used the special session of the Punjab Vidhan Sabha to broaden the scope of compensation to include all crops damaged by floods and ensure that compensation is not limited to five acres per farmer and increased to Rs 50,000 per acre.

"But he chose to waste crores of rupees to indulge in a propaganda exercise," the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader said.

"It's very well to demand adequate compensation from the Centre, but the AAP government should first disburse the Rs 12,000 crore State Disaster Response Fund in its possession to the flood-hit and then ask the Centre for additional funds," he added.

Condemning the manner in which compensation norms were being "twisted" to deny fair compensation to farmers, Badal said, "First of all, compensation has been fixed at only Rs 20,000 per acre for crop damage." "Farmers are not likely to get this figure also as revenue department staff has been asked to give only 25 per cent and 50 per cent damage claims, which will limit the compensation amount between Rs 2,000 to Rs 5,000 per acre only," he said.

He also asserted that those ploughing land on river beds, as well as those who had taken land on lease, were being denied compensation.

Badal demanded that accountability for "mismanagement" of the operations of the Ranjit Sagar dam and the Shahpur barrage be fixed at the very top instead of targeting junior-level engineers.

He said it should be disclosed as to who allowed water to accumulate for 20 days during the monsoon season before it was released in one go after crossing the danger mark.

"This abrupt release of 2.5 lakh cusecs of water for three days simultaneously destroyed crops in lakhs of acres of land," he said.

Badal said the gates of the Shahpur barrage also collapsed due to "criminal negligence" on the part of the AAP government.

He said the government did not pay heed to written requests for repairing the barrage six months before the monsoons, due to which they simply collapsed. PTI JMS CHS RHL