SME Times News Bureau | 22 Jan, 2018
Appealing to the state's angry debt-ridden farming community, Punjab
Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Saturday urged them to shun the path of
agitation and said his government could not afford to waive off any more of
their debts at the present juncture.
Reiterating that his government was committed to alleviating all their woes at
the earliest, Amarinder Singh said that despite the severe financial crunch
faced by the state government, Punjab had waived off more debts of its farmers
than the other states.
He cited the examples of Maharashtra (up to Rs 1.5 lakh), Uttar Pradesh (up to
Rs 1 lakh), Rajasthan (up to Rs 50,000), Madhya Pradesh (up to Rs 1 lakh) and
Karnataka (up to Rs 50,000) to point to the extent to which his government had
stretched itself to fulfill this important promise of the Congress to the
farming community.
He urged the protesting farmers to appreciate the government's efforts. The
Chief Minister appealed to the farmers not to be misled by the opposition
parties and some Kisan Unions, who he said were spreading false propaganda on
the issue of farm debt waiver in order to promote their vested political
interests.
"Considering the financial problems which my government had inherited from
the Akalis, and also considering the lack of support on the issue from the
central government, it is not possible, at present, to extend the debt waiver
scheme to more farmers or to waive off more than Rs 2 lakh," Amarinder
Singh said in a statement here.
The Chief Minister sought more time from the farmers to implement farm debt
waiver in toto, saying his government was working towards reviving the state's
economy so that all sections of the society could be brought back on the track
of development.
"The thrust, at the moment, is on helping out the worst affected small and
marginal farmers," Singh said, adding that all the farmers would
eventually be covered by the debt waiver scheme, once the state's economy
starts stabilizing.
Observing that the state exchequer had a debt of Rs 46,000 crore when he
demitted office after his earlier stint in 2007, the Chief Minister said that
his government was hit by a debt trap of over Rs 2 lakh crore when it took over
from the SAD-BJP government in 2017.
"This has prevented his government from full implementation of its farm
debt waiver promise in one go," he added. "Nevertheless, of the 10.25
lakh farmers who are eligible to be covered under the debt waiver scheme
announced by his government in its maiden budget, 5.63 lakh were slated to
benefit in the first phase itself," he pointed out, adding that his
government had somehow managed to generate Rs 2,700 crore needed in this phase.
"Unfortunately, however, the government is not in a position to garner
more funds in the prevailing circumstances, and hence could not accept the
demand of the farmers for total waiver," he added.
The Chief Minister said that only the big ones among the 17.5 lakh farming
families in the state had so far been left out of the waiver scheme, and they
were the ones who were quite capable of taking care of themselves.