govinfoadmin
The CM of Punjab Captain Amarinder Singh launched farm loan waiver scheme for farmers in Punjab. Farm debt waiver was one of the important commitment of the Congress Party during elections which was fulfilled by the CM with the scheme.
Punjab CM handed over farm loan waiver certificates to 10 farmers from Muktsar, Moga, Faridkot, Bathinda and Mansa districts to mark the beginning of the loan waiver distribution. 47,000 farmers from these 10 districts would benefit from the loan waiver scheme.
Punjab has 17.5 lakh farming families out of which rich families will not get benefit of the farm loan waiver. 10.25 lakh farmers will get the loan waiver though. The farm debt waiver scheme will be executed in the phased manner. In the first phase total of 5.63 lakh farmers would benefit from the scheme. A budget of Rs. 2,300 crore is allocated for the farm loan waiver. The process of verification has already been completed for 3.20 lakh farmers and more than 1 lakh loan cases with loans worth Rs. 748 crores are approved across Punjab.
Under the Punjab farm loan waiver scheme the farmers who has taken loan from 701 primary Agriculture Cooperative Societies in the state will get their loan waiver amount deposited into their bank accounts.
Debt Relief Scheme 2017 for farmers who took loans from the private banks. Farmers who has taken loan from the private banks too would benefit under Debt Relief Scheme 2017.
Eligibility:
- notified and marginal farmers with land holding of less than 2.5 acres in Punjab
- small farmers with land holding less than 5 acres
- loans upto Rs. 2 lakhs will be waived off under the scheme
Several states are have given farm loan waiver to help farmers in the respective states. In most the states such as Uttar Pradesh, Punjab the farm loan waiver was promised by various parties during their election campaign. In some cases the loan waiver was announced after the huge unrest and agitations. In Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh statewide strikes happened demanding loan waiver. All the state governments are under huge financial crises. They had to provide loan waiver due to farmer suicides. Maharashtra gave loan waiver for loans upto 1.5 lakh, UP upto 1 lakh, Rajasthan and Karnataka upto 50 thousand.
While the Punjab CM announced the Punjab farm loan waiver scheme many were agitating saying that the loan waiver is fake and many farmers has received checks of Rs. 7 and Rs. 10. Several political parties and farmers under the banner of Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) took part in the agitations saying that they will not accept peanuts and the loan waiver is nothing as compared to their loans.
