Mrs. Harsimrat Kaur Badal Member Parliament from Bathinda constituency today said that the Congress party has no will power to continue Atta Dal scheme under which 20 lakh poor families were getting Atta at the rate of Rs. 4 and Dal at the rate of Rs. 20.
In a statement issued here today Mrs. Badal said that the manifesto of Congress party clearly says that Atta Dal scheme would continue only for the needy family indicating that they would continue Atta Dal scheme only for those BPL families who would qualify Union government norms for BPL. She said that Union government has made mockery of BPL definition by putting Rs. 26 per day income level for poor family and in Punjab hardly any family would qualify that norm. She said that Capt. during his previous tenure was giving coarse rice to BPL families of Punjab who were not accepting it as rice was not the staple diet of Punjabis. She said that this was totally Centre’s sponsored scheme and state was not spending a single penny from its own budget.
Mrs. Badal said that S. Parkash Singh Badal raised this issue with Union Food Minister on how could you give the quota of coarse rice to northern states whose staple diet was wheat. She said that after unstinted efforts Chief Minister got this quota of rice converted into wheat. She said that Mr. Badal also wrote to Prime Minister to change the definition of BPL for northern states especially for Punjab as it was not having relevance to the northern states. She said that Chief Minister had been pleading with the Union government that all Atta Dal beneficiaries should be included in BPL list and Union government should relax the norms accordingly.
Expressing concern over manifesto of Congress party Mrs. Badal said that Congress party had said that they would pursue union government to continue all schemes which union government has already said no. She said that everybody knows that planning commission of India and Prime Minister have issued directions to Congress party that they should not promise free power and Atta Dal schems in their manifesto. Mrs Badal said that Congress party manifesto reflects the reluctance on the part of Congress party to continue these schemes.
Cautining the people against the nefarious designs of Congress party Mrs. Badal said that if at all Congress party comes to power 20 lakh families would lose Atta Dal and now people should make up their firm mind to decimate Congress party in coming elections.