Punjab Congress on Tuesday demanded complete loan waiver for farmers who have been badly hit by the unseasonal rains, winds and storms leading to massive shortfall in their production.
“Merely waiving off the interest for a limited period of three years amounts to playing a cruel joke with them,” said senior Congress leader and Kapurthala MlA Rana Gurjeet Singh, while expressing his disagreement with Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal who has sought only three-year relaxation for repaying of the loans and interest waiver for this period. He suggested that Badal must use his good offices and prevail upon the Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the complete waiver and not just interest waiver.
“Mere interest waiver is not going to provide any succour to the farmers as eventually they will have to pay back their loans…like the previous UPA government waived off the loans of farmers for various reasons, NDA Government has more reasons to do that as the farmers have suffered massive losses,” he said.
He opined that all the farmers across the board must be granted loan waiver irrespective of the fact whether they have been repaying their monthly instalments or have defaulted for various reasons.