Former Minister and senior Congress leader, Raman Bhalla has hailed combine harvesters from Punjab reaching Jammu for harvesting the wheat crop as the farmers have been facing shortage of labour while the harvesting season is at its peak. “Due to the COVID-19 threat the farmers cannot use the labour in bulk for harvesting the crop this time. Now Administration should facilitate free movement of combine harvesters and other farm machinery from outside the Union Territory so that farmers can reap their yield on time,” Bhalla said. He also appealed the farmers to wear masks and maintain safe physical distancing while visiting farm fields. “Farmers have heaved a sigh of relief after some combine harvesters reached their areas,” asserted Bhalla. He demanded Government of India and J&K Government to quickly make concrete plans and allocate funds and distribution mechanism for underprivileged section of the society who will suffer the most during this period. “We as citizens of this country who will survive through these times will never be able to forgive ourselves if we let large sections of our population die of hunger, lack of access to healthcare and other basic needs. Privileged or economically well off will survive through this period by locking ourselves in houses, but sufferings of the other section are beyond their imagination. Meanwhile fulfilling duties and responsibilities of leader of poor and down-trodden in this hour of crisis, Bhalla continued distributing ration and other necessary items among needy and poor families of Gandhi Nagar Constituency at Belicharana, Doda Basti and Digiana Duni Chand Mohalla. Prominent among those who accompanied Bhalla included Vijay Sharma Vice President Congress Seva Dal, Distt General Secretary DCC Aman Bawa, Suman Choudhary, Shashi Syal, Maghar Ram, Janak Raj, Inder Singh, Dara Singh, Rakesh Sharma, Munshi Thakur, Parvesh Sharma, Mohammad Abbas, Shehzaad Qazi, Rajinder Chauhan, Gopal Dass, and Sunil Mehra. Bhalla said that a six-week nationwide lockdown to facilitate effective physical distancing, coupled with expansion of core public health measures such as detection, isolation and tracing contact of COVID-19 positive people, helped greatly in breaking the transmission and that’s why the death toll here is lower than other countries. He demanded sealing of all entry and exit points and asked the concerned to restrict the public movement so that the individuals coming from the affected areas can be restrained.
