AMRITSAR: Cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu on Friday lambasted the Union government for being ‘subservient’ to the corporate houses and doling them out loans at the cost of farmers of the nation.
Addressing a gathering at the Vallah vegetable market near Amritsar, Sidhu alleged that the Centre is giving huge tax benefits to corporate houses and challenged the Union government for a debate on the issue.
“Every year, the Centre is giving Rs 5 lakh-crore tax benefits to the corporate houses,” he alleged. He went on to say that instead of penalising them, whose factories are causing pollution, they are awarded tax concessions and given loans at the cost of farmers. At his fiery best, the Amritsar (East) MLA demanded of the central government to give incentives to the farmers to prevent stubble burning.
Talking about the recent ordinance that aims at dealing with the air pollution in Delhi-NCR caused by various sources, including stubble burning, and has provisions for strict penalties and jail term, former Punjab minister Sidhu said the government chose to bring the ordinance without devising a way to dissuade the farmers for not burning stubble.
Mocking Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s initiative to make fertiliser from the stubble, he said, “They have given fertiliser in one or two fields in Delhi, which has just four (only few) fields, where no farming takes place.”
He, however, hailed the Punjab government, saying, two years ago, it had undertaken the initiative to make bio products including bio fuel, from stubble. “Those projects are running in several villages, but that is just 5% of the total stubble in the state,” he said.