In a State where three farmers commit suicide every two days owing to high debt burden, the Punjab Government is all set to help the State farmers flourish by bringing about a legislation banning money lending in the State.
In this direction, Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on Monday directed the Financial Commissioner Development to work out all the modalities to bring a legislation to abolish money lending in the State. The move is aimed at safeguarding the interests of the farming community in the larger public interest.
The development is significant as already a slew of systems are in place for enabling the farmers to raise loans, including the agriculture co-operative banks. The need for bringing about the legislation has been felt as unorganized money-lending business was flourishing in the State where suicides by farmers are not uncommon. The interest would, over a period of time, come out to be more than the principal amount resulting in undue hardships and harassment to the farmers.
Punjab Kisan Sangrash Committee's State president Satnam Singh Pannu claimed that every farmer, on an average, owes more than Rs 2 lakh, and the Government has no regulation on the money lending system. The National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO), in its study, has maintained that Punjab farmers are amongst "most heavily" debt-burdened in India, estimated to be more than Rs 35,000 crore, "which has resulted in farmers' suicide".
The study, conducted by the ludhiana's Punjab Agriculture University (PAU), revealed that about 5000 farmers or farm labourers have committed suicide during the past 10 years. Furthermore, between 2008 and 2009, no less than 2990 farmers committed suicide just in two districts of Sangrur and Bathinda due to indebtedness.
This is not all! The grimness of the problem of farm suicide in the State can be gauged from the fact that every year 500 farmers opt for self-destruction as way out from debt. These findings are of the State Government commissioned survey conducted by three State universities - Patiala's Punjabi University, ludhiana's PAU, and Amritsar's Guru Nanak Dev University.
Passing through an agrarian crisis, the grain bowl of India - Punjab - is confronting some serious social and lifestyle issues leading to increasing farm deaths. These include growing trend among farmers with small land holdings to borrow large sums of money to organize ceremonies like weddings and other family functions, gradual rise in drug addiction, diseases like cancer and AIDS, among others.
The study indicated that the failure to pay off the mounting debt forced the State farmers to kill themselves. As a result, around 25 per cent of the families affected have sold off their land. Waking a bit too late, the Punjab Government, from 2012, had decided to give Rs 2 lakh to the family of deceased. For 2013, the State has earmarked Rs 66 crore for this purpose, with the aim of giving the compensation to 4,688 affected families.
However, the compensation would only be given after the Committee, constituted to verify the claims comprising Deputy Commissioner, SSP and Chief Agriculture Officer of the concerned district, would submit its verification report.
Earlier also in 2006, the then Congress government in the State had prepared a draft bill to regulate money lending in the State, which could not become a reality owing to pressure of the arhtiyas or commission agents. In fact, the Bill could never come into being even after the SAD-BJP government came to power in 2007.
The legislation, if it comes into being, would be a twin-boon for the State farmers as already, the Punjab Government has pruned the role of arhtiyas (commission agents) and the middlemen. Notably, the arhtiyas were pocketing major chunk of farming profit amounting to Rs 6427.27 corers in just two decades from 1990.
Now, the State government has provided the farmers with options - either to sell their produce directly to the parties, including the Food Corporation of India, or approach the purchasers through the arhtiyas.