Punjab Vidhan Sabha Speaker Rana Kanwar Pal Singh on Friday constituted a five-member panel to review and prepare a comprehensive report on the farmers’ suicide across the State.
The Committee, constituted in compliance of the resolution put forward by the Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh in the recently-concluded budget session on June 19, would meet the family of farmers who had committed suicide to probe the reasons that forced them to take extreme step.
The panel, headed by Congress MlA from Raja Sansi Sukhbinder Singh Sarkaria, would prepare a comprehensive report with suggestions and recommendations to curb disturbing trend of farmers’ suicides.
In the Committee, Congress MlA from Balluana Nathu Ram, Congress MlA from Fatehgarh Sahib Kuljit Singh Nagra, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MlA from Mansa Najar Singh Manshahaia and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) MlA from Sanour Harinderpal Singh Chandumajra are nominated as members.
Besides going into the reasons and listing out the suggestions for farmers’ committing suicide, the Committee has also been asked to dig out the reasons for poor economic condition of the farm labourers, besides suggesting ways to bail out this downtrodden community from economic crisis.
Committee was formed days after Chief Minister Capt Amarinder has expressed concern that about 70 farmers have committed suicide since the Congress Government took over. He also pointed that more than 6000 farmers have committed suicide during the erstwhile SAD-BJP Government.
Capt Amarinder had also announced paying all the outstanding dues of all the 7000 farmers (approximately) who have committed suicide leaving their families in debt trap.
Already, Finance Minister Manpreet Badal, in his budget speech, announced enhancing the compensation to next of kin of farmers who have committed suicide to Rs five lakh from Rs two lakh.