Congress to waive loans of small farmers: Surjewala

Tribune News Service

Hisar, May 27

Congress leader and Kaithal MLA Randeep Singh Surjewala has stated that on coming to power in Haryana, the Congress would waive the farm loans up to Rs 50,000 given to farmers having landholdings of less than two acres, landless agricultural labourers and the poor.

Addressing a Kisan Yuva Adhikar rally at Kheri Chaupta village in Narnaund Assembly segment of the district on Sunday, Surjewala alleged that the present government was not providing due rates for the agricultural produce.

“The government has failed to provide even the officially announced Minimum Support Prices (MSP) for various crops. Debt relief is urgently required for providing interim relief to the small farmers, Scheduled Castes, Backward Classes and small shopkeepers. If the Punjab Government could provide a loan relief to 22 lakh farmers despite its financial problems, there is no reason that the BJP government should not give the same relief to state farmers,” he maintained.

Questioning the Central and state governments for not waiving agricultural loans, the Congress leader said when loans of a dozen industrialists amounting to Rs 2.41 lakh crore could be waived, then why the loans of Rs 2 lakh crore taken by 62 crore farmers cannot be waived.

He pointed out that the insurance companies had been paid Rs 20,478 crore in kharif-2016 and Rabi 2016-17 as insurance premium amount, but farmers have been paid compensation of Rs 5,650 crore only.

Castigating the BJP government for the skyrocketing prices of petrol and diesel, Surjewala said despite the international prices of crude oil being nearly half as compared to the prices during the tenure of the UPA government, the people of the country and the region were being forced to pay much higher prices for petrol and diesel.

“During the last four years, the BJP regime has increased the Central excise duty on petrol by 211.7 per cent and on diesel by 443.06 per cent. Similarly, the state BJP government increased the VAT on petrol from 21 per cent to 26.25 per cent and almost doubled the VAT on diesel from 9.24 per cent to 17.22 per cent,” he stated.

Surjewala criticised the state government for its auction notices to 5,000 farmers who could not clear their bank dues. He asserted that the Congress stands firmly with the distressed farmers and would not let the state government go ahead with its plan of auctioning farmers’ land.