Lashing out at the BJP-led Central Government for failing to come to the rescue of the beleaguered farmers, Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Thursday said that the farmers’ suicides will continue in Punjab and other States if Centre does not give up its apathy to the farming community.
Capt Amarinder, launching the third phase of his Government’s farm debt waiver scheme, lambasted the Centre over its continued indifference to the woes of the farmers. “The States cannot do everything on their own, without the Central Government’s help,” he said while acknowledging that the loan waiver scheme announced by Congress led Punjab Government was not enough to alleviate farmers’ all sufferings.
With loan amounts of many farmers more than what the Government was currently waiving off, their plight continued to be acute, said Capt Amarinder.
Pointing out that the Government had inherited a huge Rs 2.08 lakh crore debt, Capt Amarinder said that the loan waiver scheme was the best he could have done in the circumstances, especially considering the lack of support from the Centre and the non-implementation of the Swaminathan Commission report.
“Even the Prime Minister and the Union Finance Minister, whom I have personally met to seek help for the farmers several times, have failed to realise the criticality of the situation and implemented only a small part of the Swaminathan report,” he said, demanding in toto implementation of the recommendations of the committee.
Capt Amarinder said that the State Government’s loan waiver scheme was only a “temporary solution” to the problems of the distressed farmers and the Centre had to step in if a permanent solution had to be found.
Meanwhile, he said that the State Government would continue to find ways of helping the farmers, including diversification initiatives. “The Government would also soon come out with a loan waiver scheme for the landless labourers, who are also reeling under huge debt burdens,” he announced.
Capt Amarinder also hit out at the Centre for failing to provide compensation to the farmers against stubble burning, which was one of the causes for air pollution in the state. He, however, categorically denied Punjab’s responsibility for pollution in Delhi, which he attributed to local reasons in the national Capital.
Earlier, the Chief Minister handed over debt relief certificates to some of the beneficiaries to mark the launch of the third phase of the debt waiver scheme, in which Rs 1,009 crore is being waived off for the benefit of 1.42 lakh small farmers of Cooperative Banks.
As many as 2,413 farmers of Ropar district got debt waiver certificates to the tune of Rs 17.74 crore.
The fourth phase of the scheme would also be launched soon to benefit 18,000 small farmers of commercial banks, the Chief Minister announced.
Capt Amarinder pointed out that the State Government had already provided debt relief of Rs 1,815 crore to 3.18 lakh marginal farmers of Cooperative Banks, besides benefitting 1.04 lakh marginal farmers of Commercial Banks with a debt relief of Rs 1,689 crore.
Lauding the Mandi Board for launching E-Nam project, the Chief Minister said that E-Nam was launched in 19 mandis with an objective of providing competitive and remunerative prices to farmers for their produce through online competitive bidding process and 16 more markets would be upgraded in the near future.
Assuring the farmers of seamless wheat procurement in the ensuing season too, the Chief Minister said that food-grains in the last four crops had been procured without any hassle to the farmers.