Driving Naari Programme launched in Chandigarh
Chnadigarh, Congress today demanded complete loan waiver for farmers who have been badly hit by the unseasonal rains, winds and storms leading to massive shortfall in their production. He said, merely waiving off the interest for a limited period of three years amounts to playing a cruel joke with them.
In a statement issued here today, senior Congress leader and Kapurthala MLA Rana Gurjeet Singh disagreed with the Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal who has sought only three year relaxation for repaying of the loans and interest waiver for this period.
He suggested that Mr Badal must use his good offices and prevail upon the Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the complete waiver and not just interest waiver.
Rana said, mere interest waiver was not going to provide any succour to the farmers as eventually they will have to pay back their loans. He said, like the previous UPA government waived off the loans of farmers for various reasons, the NDA government has more reasons to do that as the farmers have suffered massive losses.
The former Jalandhar MP said that all the farmers across the board must be granted loan waiver irrespective of the fact whether they have been repaying their monthly instalments or have defaulted for various reasons.
He said, earlier, only the loans of those were waived off who had defaulted while those who had been repaying their instalments on time where denied the waiver. “Why penalise such people with good repayment record?” he asked, while adding, just some farmers are serious about paying back their loans must not be held against them.
Rana said, the farmers across the country whether they cultivated wheat, cotton, sugarcane of potatoes were faced with severe crisis and loan waiver could come as some relief to them. “Otherwise they might be forced to go for the distress sale of their agriculture land even, not to speak the extreme steps like suicide”, he pointed out.
