The Vidhan Sabha today unanimously adopted a resolution urging the Centre to help the state in promoting diversification and demanded a technology mission with an allocation of Rs 5,000 crore for Green Revolution states on the pattern of “Bringing Green Revolution to Eastern India (BGREI)” during the 12th Five-Year-Plan. A resolution to this effect was moved by Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal. The resolution also requested the Centre to release the promised relief package forthwith to bail out the Punjab farmers and the state government in the wake of the near drought-like conditions during the kharif 2012. The package envisages a relief of Rs 3,000 per hectare to rice growers and Rs 1,530 crore to the state government as compensation for supplying additional power to the farmers for irrigating paddy. The resolution said the constant increase in the cost of agriculture inputs and the subsequent non-remunerative minimum support price (MSP) had rendered the wheat-paddy cycle non-profitable. Punjab farmers were reeling under a heavy debt to the tune of Rs 35,000 crore. Repeated sowing of paddy had resulted in the depletion of ground water and it was the need of the hour to switch over to other alternative crops. The resolution said that the state farmers should be motivated to opt for diversification and that it was payback time and the Centre must acknowledge the “services rendered by our farmers (in making the country surplus in foodgrain) by giving them their due share.