Providing Rs 88.02 crore debt waiver to another 13,069 farmers, Punjab Government on Wednesday maintained that each farmer would be bail out from debt trap as soon as the Government’s financial condition gets sound.
The State Food, Civil Supplies, and Consumer Affairs Minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu, claiming that the state government is fulfilling its each promise made in party's manifesto during the assembly elections, said that its’ performance is enough to debunk the opposition’s propaganda against the government.
“Opposition parties are trying to rake up non-issues to tarnish Government's image, however SAD-BJP did nothing for the peasantry during its regime of 10-year,” said Ashi while speaking with the media during a district-level debt-relief function.
Ashu said that each and every single grain was procured and payment was made on time by the government in wheat procurement season but the farmers were harassed in grain markets during SAD-BJP government.
Expressing determination and commitment, he said that each debt-ridden farmer would be given waiver in the coming years “as soon as government's financial condition gets sound”.
He revealed the Congress government’s debt-relief program started from Mansa this year, and has already cleared debt of Rs 999.67 crore to 2,02,111 small and marginal farmers, including Wednesday’s amount and number of farmers, who had taken loans from co-operative banks.
“Soon, second phase would start in which marginal and small farmers of public sector banks and commercial banks would be taken up by government,” he said.
ludhiana MP Ravneet Singh Bittu exhorted the farmers to adopt new technologies and diversified farming to save environment and depleting groundwater.
He also targeted the previous SAD-BJP Government for ignoring the farmers alleging that spurious fertilizers and seeds were given to them hence they got trapped in the debt and starting committing
suicides.
Bittu asked them to reduce their unnecessary expenditures saying that apart from farmers, the debt-ridden labourers would also be covered under this scheme.