Bhopa, February 06: Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has urged the Prime Minister to sanction special package for Madhya Pradesh saying that the state has not received any additional financial assistance as such. He said that additional central assistance should be provided to the state in view of large scale damage suffered by the farmers.
In his letter to the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, the Chief Minister said a memorandum seeking assistance of Rs. 2442 crore has already been submitted for mitigating the effect of crop damage due to cold wave and frost in January, 2001.
Chouhan said that Rs. 224.60 crore sanctioned by the Government of India under the State Disaster Relief Fund includes the second installment of Rs. 147.28 crore of the current financial year. It also includes an advance equal to 25 percent of the next year’s allocation, which comes around Rs. 77.32 crore. This amount, in any case was due to the state as per the recommendations of the 13th Finance Commission. Obviously, the state has not received any additional financial assistance as such, he added.
Meanwhile, it may be pointed out here that the Chief Minister Chouhan has threatened to go on fast from February 13 if his demands were not met. He s adamant with his resolve for the indefinite fast and had reportedly said a few days back that he has decided to observe fast due to apathetic attitude of the Central Government towards the farmers of the State. “The fast would not be merely symbolic, but continue till demands of MP are not met,” he added.
He also mentioned that during his agitation, common people would not face any problems. He said that he was forced to take such a decision following step-motherly treatment by the Centre for years and ‘anti-farmer’ attitude of the Central Government.
“In the past few years, I made all efforts to change the attitude of the Centre. I met Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and his Cabinet colleagues several times raising different issues related to Madhya Pradesh, but to no avail,” he lamented. (pervezbari@eth.net)