Punjab CM rolls out debt waiver scheme, admits to lapses

Punjab chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Sunday launched the much-talked about farm debt waiver scheme at Mansa, claiming this will take Punjab’s poor peasantry out of debt trap.

He, however, acknowledged that there were certain gaps in the process of preparing the lists of eligible farmers for debt waiver. This comes in the wake of reports of many small and marginal farmers having been left out of the lists.

To begin with, nearly 47,000 farmers having landholdings of not more than 2.5 acres have been chosen from Malwa region’s five districts (Mansa, Bathinda, Faridkot, Moga and Muktsar) that recorded a high incidence of farmer suicides.

The CM, who handed debt waiver cheques to 10 Malwa farmers, said, “While big farmers like me and Badal sahib (his predecessor Parkash Singh Badal) will be taking care of their own debt, poor farmers of the state will be awarded the debt waiver.”

He was accompanied by Punjab Congress president and Gurdaspur MP Sunil Jakhar and state finance minister Manpreet Badal.

The government will pay nearly Rs 170 crore to different cooperative societies registered with the Punjab Agriculture Development Bank (PADB) from where these farmers had taken the loans.

“We have deposited the (waived off loans) money in your bank accounts. Nobody will be left out. This is my assurance to you (farmers),” Amarinder said.

“There are some technical faults due to which some farmers were left out of the scheme. These issues are being resolved. I appeal to the farmers to approach their deputy commissioners and sub-divisional magistrates (SDMs) to raise these issues,” he said.

The CM said Punjab has taken the lead over other states in waiving the farm loans up to Rs 2 lakh.

He said while the governments of Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh had waived up to Rs 1 lakh, Rajasthan and Karnataka waived up to Rs 50,000 only.

“Punjab has its own compulsions keeping in mind the state’s poor financial health due to the financial mess created by the Akali government,” Capt said.

He said the name of the farmer who committed suicide in a Barnala village is there in the beneficiaries’ list that will be announced in the next phase.

Jakhar seeks mandate for 2019

Sunil Jakhar used the opportunity to seek the farmers’ mandate for the 2019 parliamentary elections.

“The year 2019 is nearing, and we assure you that no poor farmer of the state will be left out (from loan waiver). We also assure that farmers’ income in Punjab will also double,” Jakhar said.

He said there was a wave against the Narendra Modi government at the Centre with the peasantry from various states holding protests at Jantar Mantar in Delhi.

Jakhar said he has appealed to the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leadership in Punjab for an all-party delegation to call on the Prime Minister for waiving farmers’ loans taken from nationalised banks.

Amarinder and Jakhar flayed the AAP and the Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) for their holding protests in Mansa on Sunday, saying the AAP has lost the ground in the state.

Jakhar claimed that the Akalis were behind the incidents of sacrilege of the Sikhs’ holy book Guru Granth Sahib. “The Justice Ranjit Singh Commission report will clear the air on this,” he said.

Manpreet Badal said he hoped that the state will soon come out of financial crisis and the government will provide employment to the youth.