Chandigarh, April 4: The Punjab and Haryana High Court Tuesday restrained the banks and other financial institutions from taking any coercive action against the marginal and small farmers for recovery of their unpaid loans till May 8 as it asked the Punjab government to provide a time schedule on disbursement of Rs 4,250 crore, which it has allocated for the crop loan waiver scheme in the budget passed last month.
The division bench of Justices Ajay Kumar Mittal and Anupinder Singh Grewal expressed concern over farmer suicides and observed that the court could not be “heartless” towards the situation. “We cannot keep adjourning the case for the sake of adjournments. People have to have faith in the system,” the division bench observed during the hearing of a bunch of Public Interest Litigations (PILs) on farmer issues.
Punjab’s Additional Chief Secretary (Agriculture) Vishwajeet Khanna was present in the court. He had been summoned by the division bench on March 19 to explain the “practical modalities” regarding the disbursement of the funds under the crop loan waiver scheme announced by the government last year. As per the scheme, the government has offered loan waiver to small and marginal farmers to the tune of Rs 2 lakh.
The division bench, during the hearing, told Khanna that they have had compelled to summon him to the court as they were apprehensive about the fulfilment of the promise made to farmers by the government, and they wanted to know where from the government would get the funds in view of its financial crisis. “Something has to be presented before the court… to show bona fide intention,” the division bench observed.
Khanna told the court that the government had so far spent Rs 308 crore on the implementation of the scheme and had now proposed to spend Rs 4,250 crore in the budget passed last month.
The division bench observed that the state had to ensure the funds did not go into the wrongful hands and reach the genuine farmers. Khanna told the bench that they have created a software for the disbursement of the money and it directly is sent to the banks for the loan waiver after a proper audit.
The division bench has now directed the government to provide a time schedule on the disbursement of the funds and also asked it to explain how the previous amount of Rs 308 crore was spent. The government told the court that banks also needed to be involved in the process. The division bench later ordered the banks and financial institutions to not take coercive action against the farmers in view of the crop loan waiver scheme of Punjab government till next date of hearing.
While the division bench also asked the government to respond to the suggestions and studies placed on record by senior lawyer R S Bains and asked the farmers to ensure the loan taken from banks was not spent on unproductive things.
Source Indian Express
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