Amarinder to roll out debt-waiver scheme at Mansa

The Punjab government will formally roll out its farm debt waiver scheme from Mansa district tomorrow.
State Chief Minister Amarinder Singh will disburse debt relief certificates to eligible beneficiaries in Mansa in the first phase of the scheme.
The symbolic launch of the debt waiver scheme will be held at Mansa where nearly 47,000 eligible beneficiaries -- small and marginal farmers who availed loans from cooperative banks -- will be given debt relief certificates to the tune of Rs 167.39 crore, officials said here.
In the initial phase, the scheme will cover farmers who took loans from 701 Primary Agriculture Cooperative Societies of the five districts-Mansa, Bathinda, Faridkot, Muktsar and Moga.

The chief minister will on Sunday formally launch the farm debt waiver scheme, officials said.
The government has already identified 5.63 lakh farmers, who took loan of nearly Rs 2,700 crore from cooperative institutions as on March 31, 2017, as beneficiaries, said Additional Chief Secretary (Co-operation) D P Reddy and ACS (Development) Viswajeet Khanna while addressing media here.

They said that of these, the process of verification had been completed in case of 3.20 lakh farmers. "As many as 1.60 lakh cases with loans worth Rs 748 crore have been approved pan Punjab, they said. As per the plan, the entire debt waiver process will be completed in four phases."

In the first phase, verified marginal farmers will be handed over the debt relief certificates and the rest in subsequent phases, after proper verification.
For eligible farmers who do not have Aadhaar cards or, in the case of mismatch of Aadhaar card seeding either with banks or revenue records, verification will be done manually for their inclusion in the scheme in the second phase, Reddy said.
In case any marginal and small farmer is left out of debt relief scheme, then he can submit his representation to the Assistant Registrar of Cooperative Societies or Sub Divisional Magistrate of concerned district.

The Punjab government had announced farm debt waiver in which loan waiver for up to Rs 2 lakh for small and marginal farmers (up to 5 acres) and a flat Rs 2 lakh relief for all other marginal farmers would be given, thus benefiting over 10 lakh farmers.
Meanwhile, Punjab Congress chief Sunil Jakhar said all the political parties should applaud the CM for waiving debt of farmers despite having "limited means" as promised before the assembly elections.
He said over six lakh accounts of small and marginal farmers who own land up to five acres with up to Rs 2 lakh debt have been identified for the debt waiver scheme.

Jakhar further said that he will also impress upon the government to take care of those small farmers who are not eligible under this scheme on account of having outstanding loan over Rs 2 lakh.