Chandigarh, July 15
Terming the decision of the Captain Amarinder Singh-led Congress government to waive the debt of farm laborers and landless farmers of the state to the tune of Rs 590 crore, as a ploy to befool the people of Punjab ahead of the Assembly elections; the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA and Kisan Wing state president Kultar Singh Sandhwan said that Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh had only taken the decision of debt waiver in last four and-a-half years; but instead of farm laborers and landless farmers, the debts of the Congressmen was waived. In a statement issued from the party headquarters here on Thursday, Kultar Singh Sandhwan said that Captain Amarinder Singh had promised to waive all debts of the Punjab farmers, farm laborers and landless farmers in the first meeting of the cabinet during the 2017 assembly elections; but sadly the tenure of the Congress government was coming to an end and the Chief Minister was only making decisions on debt waiver.
Sandhwan said that Captain Amarinder Singh had announced a debt waiver of Rs 590 crore for more than 2.85 lakh farm laborers and landless farmers of Punjab, which was nothing but befooling the people. He said that according to a survey report, a farm laborer family in the state had a debt of Rs 77,000 per head, but as announced by the Congress government, only a debt of Rs 20,000 per head of a farm laborer family would be waived and the sword of debt of about Rs 57,000 will still hang over the head of the family. Terming the announcement of debt waiver as a new scam of Captain Amarinder Singh, Sandhwan further said that the Captain government had increased the market fee and Rural Development Fund from the mandis of the state by one per cent.
“With this increase, the Captain government has collected Rs 700 crore from the Mandi Board in the name of debt waiver of farm laborers, but has waived only Rs 590 crore,” said Sandhwan. The AAP leader said that after four-and-a-half years, the Captain government had waived the debt of only Rs 20,000 of the laborer families; whereas the debt of Congress leader Rajinder Kaur Bhattal of about Rs 80 lakh, was waived off, four years back. “This shows that Captain Amarinder Singh and the Congress party discriminate against the laborers and the farmers in providing facilities,” he added. Sandhwan asked Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh to fully forgive all the debts of the farmers, farm laborers and landless farmers as per his promise.
