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Badal offers sops to farmers

`Punjab worst sufferer in the matter of farmers' suicides'

Chandigarh: Shiromani Akali Dal president Parkash Singh Badal on Monday claimed that his party would waive off farmers' loans in Punjab if it were voted to power after the February 2007 elections in the State. The refusal of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to announce a waiver of agricultural loan for Punjab farmers as a first priority was one more instance of the utter neglect of the State by the Congress governments at the State and the Centre, the Akali leader said in a statement here.

"The Prime Minister had rubbed salt into the wounds of the Punjab farmers by refusing to accord top priority in announcing a relief package on waiving off debt," he said. He accuses Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh of providing how priority to Punjab which was not only the agricultural State of the country but also the largest contributor to the national food kitty.

Badal said Punjab was the worst sufferer in the matter of farmers' suicides due to economic hardships in which rural indebtedness was the principal factor. He said total debt liability on State farmers was Rs 24,000 crores at the start of this year and may to go up to Rs. 32,000 crores towards the end of the year. He said that at the present level of indebtedness, each farming family in the State faced a debt liability of Rs 2.40 lakhs while this could go up to Rs 3.20 lakhs per family by December 2006. The Akali leader declared that if his party came to power, it would rectify all "distortions" in farm policy to put farming back on track and lead farmers out of their present misery. — PTI

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