In the third phase of debt waiver scheme, the Congress-led Punjab Government on Thursday handed over Rs 156.12 crore debt waiver certificates to as many as 26,998 eligible farmers from six districts of Gurdaspur, Pathankot, Amritsar, Tarn Taran, Nawanshahr and Hoshiarpur.
At the same time, Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh also announced a slew of projects for the border areas, including a Government medical college in Gurdaspur, a new sugar mill in Batala, besides initiating steps to upgrade cooperative sugar mill at Paniar in Gurdaspur for making it economically viable.
Pointing out that the third installment of the debt waiver certificates were being distributed on the auspicious occasion of parkash utsav of Sikhs’ ninth master Guru Teg Bahadur, Capt Amarinder said that his government has also decided financial assistance worth Rs 50,000 each to the landless labourers to bail them out of the current agrarian crisis.
Capt Amarinder handed over debt waiver certificates to six farmers, one from each of the six districts, as a token gesture.
“So far, debt relief to the tune of Rs 457 crore has been disbursed to nearly 1.02 lakh farmers in three different phases, covering 16 districts of Mansa, Bathinda, Faridkot, Muktsar, Moga, Fazilka, Ferozepur, Jalandhar, Kapurthala, Ludhiana, Amritsar, Tarn Taran, Gurdaspur, Hoshiarpur, Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar and Pathankot,” he said.
The Chief Minister said that after completing the debt relief scheme of cooperative loans, the State Government would soon begin the waiving off farm debts from the commercial banks, which would be completed by the end of the year.
He pointed out that despite massive financial crisis facing the state, “the Government is giving the maximum financial assistance to the farmers in terms of debt waiver relief up to Rs two lakh. This is the highest in the country”.
“In case of Uttar Pradesh, it is Rs one lakh, while the states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra are waiving off only Rs 50,000 each,” he added.
Responding to a demand raised by Gurdaspur MP and Punjab Congress chief Sunil Jakhar, the Chief Minister told the gathering that the State Government had already made a budgetary provision for setting up a medical college at Gurdaspur to provide best healthcare and diagnostic services to the people.
He asked Jakhar to identify suitable land in consultation with the local MLA for the proposed medical college.
Also sharing concern expressed by Jakhar over the logjam in Parliament, Capt Amarinder cited media reports to point out that Rs nine crore loss was being incurred per day and nearly Rs 190 crore had so far gone down the drain on this count.
He also lashed out at the opposition, including the Akalis and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), in Punjab for trying to disrupt proceedings in the Vidhan Sabha, but lauded the Congress MLAs for ensuring that the budget session went off smoothly, in the interest of the State’s welfare.
Earlier, Jakhar also flayed the NDA Government on the issue of GST on langar at Darbar Sahib, and on the issue of compensation to the Iraq victims. He also accused the Centre of deliberately overlooking the interests and rights of Scheduled Castes, and referred to the 10 percent reduction in budget under the Post Matric Scholarship Scheme.
Jakhar further said that he would once again raise the concerns of the farming community in Parliament a day after.
Criticizing SAD president Sukhbir Badal, Jakhar dared him to start a padyatra from Pathankot to Delhi over farmers’ issues, including debt waiver. “It is Capt Amarinder Singh’s Government which has waived off debt up to Rs two lakh while Akalis had only exploited the farmers with hollow promises,” he said.
AAP MLA and the Leader of Opposition in Punjab Vidhan Sabha Sukhpal Singh Khaira on Thursday urged the Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh to stop playing politics over a critical issue like debt and suicides by the farmers by holding functions to hand over ‘parmaan pattars’ (certificate of honour) to the debt-ridden farmers, and instead transfer the money directly into the farmers’ bank accounts.
“Actions speak louder than words, and if Capt Amarinder is genuinely concerned about the pitiable plight of debt-ridden farmers, he should simply transfer the money into the bank accounts of the farmers, instead of spending crores of public exchequer money to gain petty political mileage out of these functions,” said Khaira.
He added, “It takes large amount of money to transport 40,000-50,000 farmers at the function, beside spending money to erect the huge pandaal, engage expensive singers etc.”
Khaira also lashed out at Capt Amarinder to implement his pre-poll promises of full debt waiver of Rs one lakh crore and stop misleading farmers by “indulging in cheap political gimmickry by holding functions to glorify absolutely meager, laughable and non-productive debt waiver”.
AAP MLA from Bholath pointed that Capt Amarinder had till now “waived off a total of Rs 485 crore worth debt including Rs 156.12 crore waived off at Gurdaspur today. This is not even half a percent of the colossal debt of Rs one lakh crore”.
CONGRESS GOVT INSULTING FARMERS, SAYS SAD
Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on Thursday said that it was a shame that the Congress Government was insulting farmers in the name of a loan waiver when nothing was being done for them or farm labourers even as farm suicides were on the rise with 400 farmers committing suicide in the last one year.
“It is shocking that the Congress Government is using popular singers and an advertisement blitzkrieg to befool Punjabis into thinking that a farm loan waiver is taking place in Punjab while the truth is that the Congress government has failed to implement the promised Rs 90,000 crore farmer loans taken from nationalized and cooperative banks as well as private money lenders,” said the former minister Bikram Singh Majithia.
Stating that the Congress leaders were making merry over the dead bodies of farmers, Majithia said that top singers were being called at functions which were falsely being touted as loan waiver events as had happened at Gurdaspur.
He said that besides “celebrating” the farmers’ plight with songs like “ishq da gidda”, few farmers were handed over giant cheques of three feet by six feet which had small amounts written on them. “Farmers would be happy if the cheques were smaller but had their real accumulated debt amounts on them,” he added.
Terming the present “cultural mela exercise” as the biggest betrayal of the farming community in the history of the State, Majithia said that the present scheme caters to only five per cent farmers who have defaulted on crop loans and does not include marginal farmers who own 2.5 acres of land.