Punjab Government on Friday asked the farmer organisations to desist from “harming” the farmers’ interests to further its narrow political interests.
“Bhartiya Kisan Union (Ugrahan) is inciting farmers to stage protests at the Primary Cooperative Agricultural Development Bank (PADB) to not repay the loans and is vitiating the atmosphere besides leading to the situation where the services being made available to the farmers and other members of general public are being negatively affected,” said the sstate Cooperation Department’s spokesperson.
Spokesperson said that the protests, being staged on the instigation of the opposition parties, are part of a well-planned conspiracy because in case of the failure of PADB to deposit the instalment, aid from NABARD would be stopped which would harm the interests of farmers only.
Notably, the PADBs advances long-term loans to the farmers in the state and these loans are re-financed by the NABARD.
The farmers repay loans of PADBs in instalments, and similarly, the PADBs too had to return loan to NABARD in a timely manner in instalments, said the spokesperson adding that the PADBs, till now, have never defaulted on the repayment of NABARD loan instalment in a timely manner, and if PADBs are unable to do so in future, it would result in stopping of re-financing from NABARD.
This would take the things to such a sorry pass where the PADBs would be unable to provide loans to farmers in future which would put the needy farmers in jeopardy, said the spokesperson.
Spokesperson said that the instalment, payable by the PADBs to the NABARD and other institutions till January 2019, stands at Rs 450 crore approximately whereas the recovery by PADBs has only been to the tune of Rs 295 crore which is a meagre 15.64 percent of the total Rs 1886.71 crore.
“PADBs recover the amount primarily by making the farmers aware, and no farmer is harassed. But there are several farmers who, despite being capable of repaying, do not repay the loans and PADBs had to resort to action against such farmers,” noted the spokesperson.
Spokesperson said that the Kisan Unions are “misleading” the farmers to not repay the loans, which is against the farmers’ interests. “That explains why the government is already promulgating in the farmers’ interests. The government has already given debt relief in respect of crop loans to the tune of Rs 3500 crore to 4.17 lakh farmers, and sooner the process would be initiated to extend this relief to the small farmers too,” added the spokesperson.
The Spokesperson said that the government would be forced to take recourse to strict action in case the Kisan Union supported agitations turn nasty.
At the same time, the Department appealed to all the farmers to return loans taken from the PADBs so as to ensure that the functioning of banks continues without any hindrances. “The protests at the PADBs need to be stopped without any delay thereby ensuring that there is no negative effect on the working of the banks which in turn would enable them to return the instalments of NABARD in time after recovering the same from the farmers thus leading to smooth functioning of the banks,” said the spokesperson.