At a function to be organised at village Rampura in Bhawanigarh tehsil of Sangrur district on Thursday, Punjab government will give out debt relief certificates to 73,748 farmers from six districts of the state. In Thursday’s event, the six districts that will be covered are — Sangrur, Barnala, Patiala, Fatehgarh, Ropar and Mohali.
With this event waiver of another Rs 485 crore of farm debt will be done, while already an equal amount has been waived off of 1.05 lakh farmers across 16 districts of Punjab. This will bring an end to the first phase of farm debt relief in the state in which all the 22 districts have been covered. In the other phases, the remaining farmers will be covered, again in a phased manner.
In the first phase, farmers having land of 2.5 acres or less and a debt of less than Rs 2 lakh with cooperative banks were extended relief. Officials revealed that number of farmers is this category was about 5 lakh across the state, but with Thursday’s event approximately 1.78 lakh farmers would have been given relief of Rs 970.6 crores.
CM Amarinder Singh will hand out relief certificates to farmers. Sangrur DC Ghanshyam Thori revealed that, out of 73,748 farmers, 27,977 farmers are from Sangrur and their share of waiver will Rs 144 crores.
Over 150 farmers from Chhajali is a village in Sangrur have been listed for debt relief. Sant Ram, village in-charge of Bharti Kisan Union (Ugrahan) said, “Over 150 farmers from this village will go for the event. However, farmer suicides which include farm labourers are a serious issue in our village. This also needs to be addressed.”
In the run up to Thursday’s event at Rampura village’s Dana Mandi, administration had sought 30 acres additional land for parking. As a result farmers of the surrounding area had to clear the land of their crop. Many said they will not be able to retrieve and sell straw from this land due to Thursday’s event.
"Farmers could not cut straw from their fields because it got wet because of rain. However, we have agreed to compensate them for the same. It will be in the range of Rs 3,000- 4,000 per acre. We will not let farmers suffer any loss,” Sangrur MP Vijayinder Singla said.
Source: http://indianexpress.com/
