Former Chief Minister and Amritsar MP Capt Amarinder Singh today warned the Akali-BJP government against the undue and unwarranted delay in the payment to sugarcane farmers across Punjab by the state owned sugar mills.He disclosed that the state owned mills owed about Rs 250 crores to sugarcane growers which was pending for a long time now. He said, farmers were being forced to go for protest.Asking the government to set a deadline for releasing the payment to the sugarcane growers of the state, Capt Amarinder warned, otherwise the Congress will launch a state-wide agitation.
He said, on the one hand the government was asking the farmers to go for persification and growing alternate crops like sugarcane but when it came to paying them for their produce the government had failed to pay it on time.The former Chief Minister said, there were thousands of sugarcane growers in the state who were awaiting the payment from the government. He expressed surprise as how a government claiming itself to be the guardian of farmers’ interests was letting them down.He hoped that the government will make the payment to the farmers in a time bound manner so that they are not forced to come on roads and in case that happens the Congress will launch protest dharnas all over the state.