Chandigarh:
Punjab Chief
Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Wednesday underlined the need for high-end
equipment for security forces to detect drones used by Pakistan to smuggle
weapons into the border state.
The issue was discussed during a meeting convened by the CM
with Congress MPs from both the Houses and to discuss budget proposals for the
next fiscal and issues pending with the Centre, a government statement said.
On the Sutlej Yamuna Link Canal issue, Singh asked the MPs to
push for amendment in the Inter-State River Water Disputes (Amendment) Bill
2019, pending in Rajya Sabha, to protect Punjab’s water resources, it said.
The bill seeks to expedite and streamline
resolution of inter-state water disputes through a single central tribunal
instead of the existing numerous ones.
The linking of the Sutlej and Yamuna rivers through a canal
has been a contentious issue between Punjab and Haryana. Punjab wants a
reassessment of the volume of water in Ravi and Beas rivers while Haryana seeks
completion of the SYL canal to get its share of 3.5 million acre feet of the
river waters.
Last week, an all-party meeting in Punjab called for a new
tribunal to assess river water availability. Saying that Punjab does not have
surplus water, the parties urged the Centre to ensure that the river water from
the state is not transferred to non-basin areas.
During the meeting, the CM also expressed concern over the
increase in activities by the Pakistani spy agency ISI near the borders and
reiterated the need for developing infrastructure that can detect various kinds
of drones.
Singh said he had written to the Ministry of Home Affairs
(MHA) back in August 2019, when the first instance of use of suspicious drones
came to light. A GPS-fitted drone
was detected to have dropped weapons and money in August last year. Earlier
this month, Punjab Police found two drones used for smuggling drugs from
Pakistan.
During the meeting, it was also decided that Punjab Congress
MPs would urge the Centre to immediately lift food grains from the state in the
wake of shortage of storage facilities and tardy procurement of wheat and rice
by central agencies.
The statement said 140 lakh metric tonnes of wheat and 95 LMT
of rice belonging to the central pool are currently stored in the state.
As much as 70 LMT of wheat is lying in the open
(covered area plinth), including 16 LMT wheat purchased under relaxed
specifications (URS) during 2019-20 and 10 LMT wheat procured in 2018-19.
The MPs urged the Punjab CM to approach the prime minister
over the Commission for Agriculture Costs and Prices’ reported recommendation
to review MSP policy, dubbing it a “serious threat” to the state’s
farmers.
Any change in minimum support price procurement policy will
adversely impact Punjab’s economy, they felt, expressing the fear that the
Centre would limit procurement as the first step towards putting an end to MSP
purchase.
Punjab Congress chief Sunil Jakhar said all MPs should take
up in Parliament the issue of the delayed SGPC elections “to break the
stranglehold of the Akalis”. The tenure of the current SGPC ended in 2016. (PTI)
