Manpreet Badal
Chandigarh, June 20, 2017: A few minutes into the budget presentation on Tuesday, the Opposition MLAs were in rage as soon as Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal touched the farm debt waiver issue.
The Akali-BJP MLAs threw and even tore copies of the budget speech. Soon AAP MLAs joined them and together they trooped into the well of the House trashing Rs 1500 crore budgetary allocation announced by the FM for clearing debt of farmers as a joke.
Both parties accused the Amarinder government of reneging on the Congress party’s poll promise of complete waiver.
“We haven’t run away from the promised waiver. Our government has, in fact, on the contrary owned it. Now it’s between the government and the institutional lenders since it’s become our liability,” Manpreet Badal told babushahi.com later while reacting to the Opposition allegations.
On the allegation of Rs 1500 crore being only a small component of the entire debt, he was of the view that total disbursement cannot be made in the budget of a single financial year. So the government decided to go about it in a phased manner as the entire debt burden has been taken over by it.
“We will be meeting bankers to work out, in the next three months, the modalities of repaying the entire debt,” he added.
Manpreet rubbished the hue and cry raised over the issue by the Opposition especially the Akalis because they could not digest the fact that the Congress government delivered on its promise leaving them without an issue.
“In fact, the Akalis should have done so during their decade-long rule. They were part of the Central government at the time they ruled Punjab. Their MP Harsimrat Badal is still the Union Minister. Actually, they have always remained insensitive towards the farmers’ plight,” he alleged.
Manpreet lauded the audacity shown by Chief Minister Amarinder Singh in taking this monumental decision.
The Amarinder government was quick to announce debt relief for farmers even as the expert group set up under Dr T Haque by the Amarinder government to recommend solution of the debt problem submitted its preliminary report just ahead of the budget presentation.