Badal Seeks Intervention Of Jayanti Natarajan For Providing Technical Guidance To Farmers

CM Raises Issue Related To Strengthening Of Rural Road Network With Jai Ram Ramesh

5 Dariya News

New Delhi 25-Jul-2012

Environment and Forest Minister  Jayanti Natarajan seeking her personal intervention for providing technical guidance to the small and marginal farmers of the state for enhancing their income through aforestation.The Chief Minister called on Ms Natarajan here at her office this afternoon.  Badal apprised her that due to exorbitant hike in the agricultural inputs, the small and marginal farmers of the state were in financial distress. Therefore, the need of the hour was to provide them technical assistance in aforestation, in order to supplement their income. He asked the Union Minister to depute the team of experts of the Forest department to visit the state for imparting technical knowhow to the peasantry of the state regarding the plantation of commercially viable trees so that they could enhance their income manifolds.   Badal also informed the Union Minister that the state government had already started a massive plantation drive, to plant 40 crores trees over the next 8 years. Raising the issue of the River Water cleaning with the Union Minister,  Badal urged her to clear the pending Detailed Projects Reports (DPRs) of the state so that the work on this ambitious project could be kicked off. Likewise, the Chief Minister also asked the Ms Natarajan to expedite the process of constituting the Forest Advisory Committee, so that the project of widening of several roads in the state which requires the green signal from the committee could be executed at the earliest. The Union Minister assured  Badal that she would look into the matter and asked the officers in the Ministry for early resolution of the matter. Later, the Chief Minister also called on the Union Rural Development Minister  Jairam Ramesh and urged him to direct his ministry for including atleast one road from each village of the state, under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojna (PMGSY) for up gradation.During the detailed eliberations with the Union Minister,  Badal reiterated that strengthening rural road network was the priority of the Punjab government to ensure overall development of the state.  Badal also urged the Union Minister that owing to paucity of the available land in the state and the policy of the State government not to acquire even an inch of land without the express consent of the farmers, the state had been deprived of funds for constructing the roads under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojna (PMGSY) as the minimum width requirement of such roads was 10 metres. He asked the Union Minister realizing the genuine problem of the state the prescribed norm of width must be reduced to 8.38 metres in the state.