Patiala, March 20
The Punjab Chief Minister, Capt Amarinder Singh, today took the Centre head on by announcing that his government would ban the entry of sugar from other states into Punjab in case the Centre did not allow him to sell its sugar stocks within two weeks.
Addressing a press conference at his residence, he repudiated the points raised by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee during a recent rally here. The Chief Minister also announced that in case the permission to sell the sugar stock was not received by two weeks, his government would sell its sugar stocks on its own.
Capt Amarinder Singh said he had recently written a letter to the Union Food Ministry asking it to give permission to sell the 40 lakh quintal of sugar worth Rs 535 crore which was stocked in the cooperative sugar mills in the state. He said the state government had been repeatedly requesting the Centre to allow it to sell sugar stocked in the mills but there had been no response to the pleas.
The Chief Minister said Punjabis were consuming sugar which was coming to the state from Maharashtra because of the political compulsions of the NDA government. He said despite the fact that sugar manufactured in Punjab had been accumulating in stores since the last five years. “In case the Centre does not allow us to sell it the cooperative mills of the state will be ruined”, he said.
When questioned as how the ban being proposed by him would be implemented, he said the sugar coming into the state from outside would be taxed or would be outrightly stopped at the entry point.
When asked whether this would result in a direct confrontation with the Centre, he answered “Then what can I do. I have to see the interest of the state which owes its farmers Rs 83 crore as arrears for sugarcane procured from them”.
Capt Amarinder Singh also countered the assertion of the Prime Minister that the Punjab Government had not taken up a sugarcane related scheme offered to it. He said the central scheme envisaged paying the state Rs 30 crore besides offering soft loans in return for which the state was to reduce its procurement price from the present Rs 100 to Rs 70. “What answer will I give to the farmers of the state in case I agree to such a drastic reduction in the procurement price”, he said adding that “even the cooperative mills cannot take huge loans as they are already in the red”. He also disclosed that the scheme had been rejected by the Haryana and Uttar Pradesh governments.
