Banks issue notices to Punjab farmers to pay the loans despite government promising loan waiver

Sources said that the banks have issued demand notices to retrieve loans worth Rs 9,931 crore from the farmers.
Image for Representational Purposes. | File Photo
Image for Representational Purposes. | File Photo

CHANDIGARH: Punjab farmers who were promised loan waiver by the Amarinder Singh-led Congress government were in for a rude shock when the banks displayed pictures of defaulters and issued notices asking them to pay back their debt. 

Sources said that the banks have issued demand notices to retrieve loans worth Rs 9,931 crore from the farmers. Not only were the notices sent to farmers, but also to the families of farmers who have already committed suicide.

Punjab finance minister Manpreet Singh Badal had recently met the officials of RBI and other banks and requested not to send farmers to demand notices.

But the officials of the bank branches in the state said that the notices would be served until they had written instructions from their respective head offices or the RBI. 

A young farmer from Moga, Ajmer Singh Dhillon said that in the last couple of months the banks have issued notices to some thirty families of the deceased farmers in Moga district alone.

In the last four and half months of Congress rule in the state around 160 farmers have committed suicide. 

All the seven major farmers unions in the state will take out a rally on August 22 in Barnala against the government on non-implementations of its promise to waive off farmers loans.

The Haq Committee set up by Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh on the farmer loan waiver issue will submit its final report on August 17.

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