SAD demands complete waiver for farmers, khet mazdoors
Chandigarh, June 20, 2017: The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) today “completely rejected what it called a “massive fraud of the Congress government on the innocent farmers and farm labourers of the state and asked it to apologise to them for playing a cruel joke and rubbing salt on their wounds by backing out of its promise on waiving their loans".
The party called the budget day today as “a sad day for Punjab farmers. They have cheated the people of Punjab” said Sukhbir Singh Badal while addressing a press conference here today.
The SAD said that with Rs 1500 crore budgetary provision, only loan worth Rs 14705 per farmer can be waived. Not Rs two lakh as claimed and promised by the Chief Minister on the floor of the House yesterday. The SAD described as “utterly inhuman and cruel the option which the Congress government had offered to the Punjab farmers between committing suicides to claim Rs Five lakhs as loan waiver or be satisfied with just Rs 14705 per head in case they wanted to live. This is an unprecedented heartless act of this government, it said.
The SAD-BJP will move a privilege motion against Chief Minister Capt Singh and Finance Minister Manpreet Badal for making contradictory statements on the floor of the House to mislead the House and the people of Punjab.
SAD also wanted to know how the government will fulfill waive total loans worth Rs 90,000 Crore with a budgetary provision of just Rs 1500 crore . The CM had yesterday promised to waive all loans up to Rs 2 lakhs for 10.25 lakh farmers. This amount comes to Rs 20,000 crore while the the government’s budget coming just 24 hours later commits only rs 1500 crore which is not even 7% of the amount announced by the CM yesterday. . Can the fraud get any bigger?
"The cat is finally out of the bag and the bluff which the Congress played on the farmers on the eve of elections has been called in their very first budget. It is clear now why the cabinet did not take decision to waive loans in its very first meeting. It is a sad day for Punjab farmers who might have placed their hopes on Congress promises.”
While rejecting the massive fraud played on State farmers by the Congress government by giving it the name of a loan waiver, Mr Badal reminded chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh of his promise and asked him to implement a complete loan waiver for farmers and khet mazdoor immediately.
Badal also played out a video of Capt Amarinder Singh promising he would waive off all farmer loans including those taken from nationalised and cooperative banks and also arhatiyas.
Commenting on the other gimmicks resorted to by the Congress to deceive Punjabis; the SAD president said the finance minister had allocated Rs 10 crore for distributing mobiles to youth. "This comes to one mobile per village". He said similarly the government had kept a provision of providing 2,000 houses to the poor. "This works out to one house for per seven villages". Mr Badal said youth were also being befooled in the name of jobs. "Manpreet Badal wants to introduce three lakh taxis in the State. This means there will be thirty taxis per village. Whom is he trying to fool? We will not let such a hoax be played on the people of Punjab.
Badal declared that the SAD-BJP would jointly force the government to give a complete loan waiver besides implementing all its promises including giving unemployment dole to youth, doubling social welfare benefits and increasing old age pension to Rs 2,500 per month, as pompously promised by them”.