Finding it tough to make the both ends meet on its pre-poll promise of ‘complete’ farm debt waiver, Congress-led Punjab Government has once again approached the Centre for its support in the same.
Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Tuesday, citing severe financial crunch, met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley urging the Centre to take some measures including relaxing Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Act, 2003, and enhancing borrowing limit, to enable the Punjab Government to meets its agriculture debt waiver commitments.
Capt Amarinder, in separate meetings with the two sought their intervention to direct the launch of these measures for the support of the “financially beleaguered” State.
In separate meeting, he called upon them to enhance the borrowing limit by Rs 10,000 crore to help the State Government procure additional market loans for the debt waiver or relief scheme, aimed at providing succour to the debt-ridden farmers, who were resorting to extreme measures, including suicide, in sheer desperation.
After the meetings, the Chief Minister expressed the hope for positive intervention by the Central Government to help the State in rescuing Punjab’s farmers from the vicious cycle of debt.
Capt Amarinder pointed out at the meetings that his government had waived off crop loans up to Rs 2 lakh for all small and marginal farmers, while providing debt relief up to Rs 2 lakh to marginal farmers having total debt of over Rs 2 lakh each. Besides, the State Government had also decided to take over the total debt of suicide- affected families.
With total beneficiaries of 10.25 lakh farming families, the financial implication of these steps was to the tune of Rs 9,500 crore, said the Chief Minister adding that the current annual borrowing limit at three per cent of the GSDP amounted to Rs 12,819 crore, leaving a gap of Rs 10,273 between revenue and expenditure.
“Thus, additional market borrowings are required by the State Government to fund its Debt Waiver Scheme and rescue the farmers from the vicious debt cycle,” said Capt Amarinder who was accompanied by his Finance Minister Manpreet Badal, and some senior officials for his meeting with Jaitley.