Debt worth Rs 96.36 cr of 10,481 farmers waived in Hoshiarpur

Our Correspondent

Hoshiarpur, May 28

Industries and Commerce Minister, Punjab, Sunder Sham Arora, said the debt worth Rs 96.36 crore of 10,481 farmers of Hoshiarpur district has been waived off so far.

The minister was addressing a function held here at the garden court palace on Monday.

He said under the debt waiver scheme 2,02,111 farmers had been given a relief to the tune of Rs 999.67 crore, apart from promulgating specialised measures to exhort farmers to come out of the traditional crop cycle by adopting innovative modern techniques thus leading to increase their income. The minister also divulged that Punjab was the only state to give debt waiver relief up to Rs 2 lakh to the farmers.

At the function held at the subdivision level debt waiver certificates amounting to Rs 74.81 crore were distributed to 6,830 farmers of the district. Earlier, at a function held at Gurdaspur 3,651 farmers belonging to Hoshiarpur saw their debt amounting to Rs 21.57 crore waived.

MLA Shamchurasi and District Congress committee president Pawan Kumar Adia lauded the debt waiver scheme and said in the decade-long rule of the previous regime the farming sector of Punjab got crushed under the heavy debt burden.

In his address, MLA Chabbewal and Chairman SC Department of the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee Dr Raj Kumar said the scheme, which is a product of the constructive approach of the Chief Minister had been implemented without bias. He said the state government was giving a fillip to the industrial sector so as to ensure maximum employment avenues to the youth with the Industry Minister of the state making special efforts to establish new industrial units in the district.

After this, Cabinet minister Sunder Sham Arora, MLA Pawan Kumar Adia and MLA Dr Raj Kumar jointly distributed debt waiver certificates to the farmers of their respective constituencies. The chief guest and other dignitaries were also honoured.

Deputy Commissioner Vipul Ujwal, SDM, Hoshiarpur, Jitendra Jorwal, Tehsildar Arvind Prakash Verma, MD, Cooperative Bank, Amandeep Brar, Deputy Registrar Gurpreet Singh and Happy Sood were also present on the occasion.

Bikes, computers given under welfare scheme

The Punjab Labour Welfare Board has been implementing various welfare schemes for workers.

This was stated here on Monday by Industries and Commerce Minister Sunder Sham Arora at a function organised to distribute 124 motor cycles and 11 computers to workers of the schemes run by the Punjab Labour Welfare Board. Vice-president of Sonalika International Tractors Limited Amrit Sagar Mittal, Director Commercial and Development Akshay Sangwan and Deputy Commissioner Vipul Ujwal were present during the event organised by the Labour Department.