To ensure that only deserving and eligible farmers get the benefit of its ambitious farm debt waiver scheme, the Punjab Government on Monday decided to introduce a system of self-declaration on land holdings by the beneficiaries.
With this, the farmers will have to make self-declaration of their land holdings so that those holding large chunks of land in other states, besides the NRIs, could be excluded from the scheme.
Besides, the Government has also decided to exclude the Government employees and retired pensioners, who pay income tax, from the scheme to ensure that the poorest of the poor get its benefit.
The changes in the debt waiver scheme were approved to ensure that ineligible, particularly the rich farmers, do not make it to the list of beneficiaries instead of the deserving ones.
The decisions were taken in a high-level meeting, chaired by the Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh, and a notification for the same would be issued soon. Among the Government top brass, the meeting was attended by the Punjab Congress president Sunil Jakhar, Cabinet Minister Tripat Rajinder Singh Bajwa, Mandi Board chairman lal Singh and half a dozen Congress MlAs.
Such self-declaration should relate to the farmers’ land holdings in villages in Punjab as well as in other states, said Capt Amarinder, pointing out that data from the secretaries of the cooperative societies could not alone be relied upon as they were all appointed by the Akalis during their regime.
He insisted that self-declarations, followed by random checks, would ensure fool-proof mechanism to plug any loopholes in the farm debt waiver scheme, besides preventing the Akali wrongdoings from adversely impacting the farm debt waiver scheme.
These measures would help address the various concerns of the MlAs, he said while responding to the issues raised by the elected representatives regarding the implementation of the loan waiver scheme.
Chief Principal Secretary to CM Suresh Kumar explained to the MlAs how the phased implementation of the scheme would work. Waiver of loans for farmers, who committed suicide, would be taken up after the committee set up by the Vidhan Sabha in this regard submits its report, he added.
The Chief Minister assured the MlAs that all steps would be taken by the Government to prevent misuse of the waiver benefit and ensure that no undeserving farmer is able to take its advantage.