Labourers demand debt waiver, benefits of welfare schemes

Nikhila Pant Dhawan

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, March 21

Members of the Punjab Khet Mazdoor Union took out a protest march on the last day of their three-day long stir outside the District Administrative Complex here on Wednesday. They threatened to launch another stir if the government continued to ignore their demands.

Addressing the protesters, union state president Jora Singh Nasrali and district committee member Teerth Singh Kothaguru said the BJP-led Central Government and the state Congress government had devised anti-people policies. “The agriculture sector has suffered the most. On the other hand, big corporate houses are growing bigger under the patronage of political parties,” he said.

“The SAD-BJP government had looted the state for ten years, the people were hoping for a change from the Congress government but their hopes were dashed. Promotion of agriculture machinery, more than what is required, is killing the employment avenues of the farmhands,” he said.

They also criticised the state government for not including the farm labourers in the debt waiver scheme. They demanded that in the next phase of the scheme, the state government should also include the farmhands as they don’t even have any land holdings and are dependent on seasonal work to earn their livelihood.

Apart from debt waiver, they also demanded 10 marla plots, resumption of the Atta-Dal Scheme and pension. “The government directed the officers to verify the social welfare scheme beneficiaries but the verification was not conducted as per rules. If someone was not found home one day, his/her name was struck off the list. We farmhands spend the entire day out in the field. Our names have been stuck off the lists,” he said.