CHANDIGRAH : Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Thursday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking compensation for farmers for crop resident management to check the dangerous trend of stubble burning.He urged the Centre to “rise to the occasion” and “come to the rescue” of the farmers with financial aid to compensate for stubble management.”All of us (North Indian states) will have to keep politics aside and work together to tackle this huge problem of pollution,” Mr Kejriwal said.

Singh has also requested the prime minister to convene a meeting of chief ministers of the affected states along with the Union Minister for Agriculture, Food and Environment on the same issue. “I have requested the prime minister to convene a meeting of chief ministers along with Union ministers. Just my feelings with the Delhi chief minister resolves nothing,” he said at a press conference after the release of letter’s details.

Arvind Kejriwal is a “peculiar person with views on everything but no understanding”, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh snapped today about his Delhi counterpart, who has been blaming the thick, deadly smog covering the capital on stubble burning in Punjab and Haryana.

“Mr Kejriwal is a peculiar person who has his own viewpoints on everything without understanding the situation,” Amarinder Singh said in response to Mr Kejriwal suggesting that the Punjab and Haryana government rise above politics and offer a viable economic alternative to stubble burning.
“If I have got 20 million tonnes of paddy straw, if I ask the farmer to store this, farms will be covered with the paddy straw. Mr Kejriwal doesn’t understand this problem,” said the Chief Minister.Arvind Kejriwal had called for a meeting his Haryana and Punjab counterparts to discuss the pollution crisis in Delhi.

Mr Kejriwal had earlier commented that using force would not help tackle the farm burning problem. “It’s an economic problem. Unless the governments there don’t find economically viable alternatives, this won’t stop,” he said after inaugurating 20 Continuous Ambient Air Quality Monitoring Stations in Delhi.

The Delhi Chief Minister has been asking to meet his Haryana and Punjab counterparts to discuss ways of tackling farm fires that he said were choking Delhi. “I haven’t yet got a chance to meet the two Chief Ministers,” he said. In response to Mr Kejriwal’s letters, Amarinder Singh had said that such a meeting of chief ministers will serve no purpose as the Centre alone is equipped to handle this as it has inter-state implications.(With Agency Inputs ).

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