Bajwa, Bittu flag farmers’ plight in Parliament

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 4

The rising cases of farmers’ suicides in Punjab and a deepening agrarian crisis were raised in both Houses of Parliament today by the two Congress MPs from the state.

Making his maiden Zero Hour reference in the Rajya Sabha, former Punjab Congress president Partap Singh Bajwa called for enactment of a law to prevent money lenders or banks from taking over farm land in case of default by the tillers.

Bajwa argued for the law, citing a whopping 24 to 36 per cent interest rate that the money lenders charge on loans.

In the Lok Sabha, Congress MP from Ludhiana Ravneet Singh Bittu, while speaking for farmers of the state in Zero Hour, demanded full payment in respect of the foodgrain offtake in the state.

“As much as 110 lakh metric tonnes of wheat have been lifted but the farmers have only been paid Rs 5,908 crore. As much as Rs 11,000 crore is yet to be paid to the indebted farmers who have taken heavy loans from banks and money lenders and are killing themselves under stress,” Bittu said referring to suicides by 56 farmers till March 11. He said between April 1 and 29, as many as 39 farmers had committed suicide.

The point Bittu made was that the RBI had paid the Punjab Government only Rs 17,253 crore, the money estimating the wheat offtake to be 90 lakh metric tonnes whereas the actual offtake has been 110 lakh metric tonnes.

Speaking in the Rajya Sabha, Bajwa demanded a one-time loan waiver for the farmers of Punjab, along the lines of the national-level farm loan waiver which the UPA government had given.

The former state Congress chief made his point citing the recent case of a mother and son committing suicide in Jodhpur village of Barnala district in the presence of police and civil administration officials who had allegedly collaborated with the commission agent to take forcible possession of the 2-acre land owned by the deceased.