Chandigarh, June 14: Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Wednesday announced the disbursement of Rs. 209 crore to 38,000 marginal farmers, who are members of the Cooperative Societies, within the next ten days to complete the first phase of his government’s debt relief scheme.
Expressing satisfaction over the progress of the scheme, the Chief Minister pointed out that so far 2,77,633 marginal farmers had been provided relief to the tune of Rs. 1525.61 crores in the first phase and this amount has been transferred directly into their accounts. He further said that out of 3.43 lacs marginal farmers, who are members of the Cooperative Societies, 27,179 were found ineligible as they were either serving as Government/Semi Government employees or did not meet the eligibility criteria of the scheme. Another 19,706 farmers had refused to submit the mandatory self declaration forms.
The remaining 38,000 will be provided debt relief within the next 10 days, he said, adding that if any eligible farmer had been left out for any reason, he could contact the Sub Divisional Magistrate of the area, who had been mandated to resolve this issue after due consideration in the committee headed by him.
The Chief Minster further said that in the second phase, the small farmers linked with cooperative societies would be taken up for disbursement of relief. The commercial banks had already started uploading the data of their loanee farmers on the specially designed portal for this purpose, said Captain Amarinder Singh, directing the Agriculture and Finance departments to follow up with the commercial banks in the State to ensure expeditious uploading of the data so that the process of verification and disbursing the relief amount to eligible beneficiaries could be completed at the earliest in a transparent manner.
Subsequently, the marginal farmers belonging to the cooperative societies who had not yet received the full eligible amount upto Rs. 2 lacs, and are otherwise eligible to receive relief amount due to them for the loans secured from the commercial banks would also be covered, said the Chief Minister.
Reiterating his Government’s commitment to bail out the beleaguered peasantry reeling under debt burdens, Captain Amarinder Singh said that the promise made to the farmers before the assembly elections 2017 would be fulfilled at all costs.
