Punjab Congress president and LokSabha member from Gurdaspur, Sunil Jakhar on Monday said the state border state should be developed as a special industrial zone in view of Punjab’s immense social, economic and geographical importance.

In a statement, Jakhar said that in the upcoming session of Parliament, Congress party will raise the issue to give a special economic package to state. He said that Punjab being a border state was sword arm of the country and apart from facing invaders in the past, it has also suffered due to black days of terrorism.

The Congress leader said unemployment is a big threat to the socio-economic structure of state as earlier due to it militancy badly disturbed the state and now menace of drug is a big danger to young generation of state.

He said that the industrial growth of this state can create employment opportunities for youth. “Therefore, to attract new entrepreneurs in the state, the Central government must give special industrial zone status to state for industrial growth,” Jakhar said.

He said hard working farmers of Punjab have made the country self-reliant in the food grains, and for that they even depleted the natural resources like water and soil of their provinces.

In doing so, the farmers have became indebted and it is now difficult for them to get out of debt without the help of government. Therefore, the state government has launched a debt waiver scheme for farmers from its limited financial resources, Jakhar said.

He said as farmers of the state had grown food grains for the entire nation, therefore the Union government also has the responsibility to help the state government for the debt waiver of the farmers of the state, because if the farming sector of Punjab collapses, food crisis can be restored in the country. Jakhar further said that six districts of Punjab are sharing their boundaries with Pakistan and thousands of hectare agriculture land of farmers is on the other side of the fencing at the international border.

He said that farmers can’t cultivate their fields due to restriction enabled on them due to security reasons and hence these farmers should be compensated for this by Union government. He said that all these issues will be raised by the Congress during coming Monsoon Session of the Parliament.