News punjab
SAS Nagar, 14 July 2025
Senior Congress leader and former Punjab Health Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu today announced that he, along with the people of the Mohali constituency, will hold a dharna in front of the GMADA headquarters on July 21 at 10 AM, demanding the repeal of the state government’s anti-farmer land pooling policy.
Announcing this, Sidhu said the dharna will be addressed by senior party leaders, including Punjab Congress president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring and Leader of the Opposition in the Punjab Vidhan Sabha, Pratap Singh Bajwa. He stated that all farmers’ organizations and the farmers of the concerned villages have already decided not to give up their land, and the Congress party will not allow farmers’ land to be snatched away at any cost. He appealed to the people of his constituency to join the protest in large numbers, emphasizing that only strong public outrage can force the government to withdraw this anti-people policy.
Sidhu said this land pooling policy is a direct violation of the pro-farmer law enacted by Dr. Manmohan Singh’s government in 2013, which mandates social and environmental impact assessments before land acquisition. Under this law, consent from 50% of landowners is necessary, and there is also a provision to return the land to original owners if not used within five years. Sidhu alleged that the Punjab government has introduced this land pooling policy as a “loophole” to bypass these pro-farmer provisions.
Explaining further, Sidhu said that under the old policy, in exchange for 1 kanal of land, the landowner received a 200 square yard residential plot or a 125 square yard residential plot plus a 25 square yard commercial plot. However, under the new policy, the landowner will get only a 150 square yard residential plot. Thus, a landowner with 1 kanal will directly lose 50 square yards, resulting in a loss of ₹30 lakh as per GMADA’s allotment rates — and even higher at market rates.
Similarly, a landowner with 2 kanals will lose 100 square yards compared to the old policy, and a 3-kanal landowner will lose 150 square yards. Sidhu said it is clear that this policy unfairly targets small landowners.
He further stated that under the new policy’s 50-acre scheme — designed to benefit the land mafia and large companies — 30 acres will be returned to the landowners. He claimed that this scheme favors builders and companies who have already accumulated land, as no individual landowner in the proposed urban estates of Punjab possesses 50 acres, nor can they accumulate it.
