The Punjab government intends complete the entire process of its farm loan relief scheme for 10.25 lakh farmers by October this year. Over 3.26 lakh marginal farmers have been identified for issuance of debt relief certificates during May as part of its efforts to complete this process before November.

Disclosing details of the progress of the debt relief scheme, Chief Minister  (CM) Amarinder Singh on Wednesday directed officials of the concerned departments to hold tehsil-level functions to expedite relief disbursement among the beneficiaries identified for waiver of loans from cooperative banks.

The CM said that ministers and party MLAs will hand over loan waiver certificates to the beneficiaries at the tehsil level functions. In the next phase, said Amarinder, farmers who had availed crop loan from public sector banks and other commercial banks would be covered under the scheme.

The Finance Department had been holding meetings with State Level
Bankers’ Committee to procure data of such banks to ascertain the
eligibility of their farmers, he added.

Once the data is in place, the loan amount would be released to these banks, with the government committed to the complete roll-out of the scheme by  1st October, he added.

According to an official spokesperson, the CM noted that so far, debt relief to 2.02 lakh marginal farmers of cooperative institutions, to the tune of Rs 999.97 lakh, had been released under the scheme notified by his government on October 17 last year.

The CM Amarinder pointed out that in a bid to further simplify the scheme, the govt had issued another notification on February 16, 2018, to facilitate the release of debt relief in case of death of the farmers, NRI cases and to the farmers who do not have an Aadhar card. Now such cases shall be settled by a committee under the supervision of concerned SDM, he added.

The CM Amarinder reiterated his government’s commitment to fulfill its poll promise on debt waiver for farmers, irrespective of the financial constraints faced by the state. Adequate funds were being arranged to provide relief to the burdened farmers, he added.