Maya shows pro-farmer face, showers welfare measures

LUCKNOW: In an effort to ensure a rich harvest in the coming 2012 assembly elections in the state, chief minister Mayawati on Thursday directed district magistrates to withdraw all cases related to land acquisition against farmers within a week and hold ‘kisan panchayat’ once a month to redress their grievances.
Some of the important decisions taken include: 14-hour power supply to rural areas from July 1, energisation of all private tube wells for which BL forms have already been received, new power connections on departmental estimate to tube wells owned by farmers after depositing 15 per cent supervision charge and regularisation of all those illegal tube well connections where farmers are ready to deposit the electric bill of previous six months.The CM also instructed officials to dedicate two hours on 22nd day of every month to listen and address problems of farmers.
In addition to this, she also asked the officials to dispose of the farmers’ problems on top priority vis-à-vis fertilisers, seeds, electricity, irrigation and instructed district magistrates to act as an arbitrator between farmers and other concerned departments to resolve other issues related to the compensation for erecting high tension power line towers and gas pipelines through the farmers’ land.
These orders were issued by the CM on Thursday evening after taking into account the suggestions made by farmers at the concluding session of the kisan panchayat called by her. While she was herself present in the forenoon session, the concluding session was presided over by two ministers - Chaudhry Laxami Narain (agriculture) and Thakur Jaiveer Singh (RES) in presence of cabinet secretary Shashank Shekhar Singh and chief secretary Anoop Mishra.
While expressing her gratitude to all farmers, who took part in the panchayat at her invitation, she assured them that she was committed to resolve their problems . As for the land acquisition policy, she said that it was delayed because the state government had been waiting for the Centre to act upon it and make an uniform policy for the country in this regard. The BSP supremo also claimed that when the Centre did not act, she decided to come up with her own policy in this regard.