Punjab grants huge loan waivers to farmers

Following the path adopted by the Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, the Punjab government led by Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh has granted huge loan waivers to the farmer community of the state which has been demanding the same since the UP’s new CM, Yogi Adityanath, waived off loans of the state’s farmer community. According to the new policy initiated by the Punjab government, the small and marginalised farmers, who have loans up to around two lakh rupees, will see their loans entirely waived off, and the rest of the farmers will get a waiver of nearly two lakh rupees. In the state of Punjab, there are nearly eight lakh farmers who belong to the marginalised and small farmer community.All of them will receive the benefit of the government’s new policy. A total of over ten lakh farmers will get the benefit of the policy. In addition to the loan waiver, the CM has also decided to take over the outstanding loan of the farmers who had committed suicide.

The government is likely to revamp the Punjab Settlement of Agriculture Indebtedness Act in a way which can acquire adequate provisions to address the concerns of the farmers who has taken loans from the non-institutional lenders. As per the report, a Cabinet Sub-Committee has been constituted in order to study the possibilities of the proposed review. Punjab is an agrarian state. It has a huge farmer community. The Punjab farmers have several times overturned the electorate in favour of those political parties which wholeheartedly extended support to them. It is a fact that the pro-agrarian slogans, delivered by the Congress party during the last assembly elections, enabled them to claim a huge victory even though it suffered disastrous failures in some other states it contested during that time. The Congress has taken steps to fulfil its promise which it made during the election campaign. But! Will the policy really do any good to the farmers?

Vignesh

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