Demanding crop loan amount in cash, Sangrur farmers protest

Sushil Goyal

Tribune News Service

Sangrur, May 27

Farmers are up in arms against the Punjab State Cooperative Bank for not giving them entire minimum crop limit (MCL) loan amount in cash. They demanded that per acre MCL loan amount for different crops should be given to them by branches of cooperative banks without dividing the same into four components — cash amount, fertiliser, essential goods, and diesel.

They said they should be able to spend the entire MCL loan amount as per their requirements.

Protesting against the division of MCL loan amount into four components and its implementation in a strict manner, hundreds of farmers today gathered at the local grain market and took out a march from there to head office of Sangrur Central Co-operative Bank Limited here.

The protesters also staged a dharna in front of the bank here which was attended among others by state president of BKU (Ugrahan) Joginder Singh Ugrahan, district president Amrik Singh Gandhuan, district vice-president Darbara Singh Chhajla, Dilbag Singh Harigarh and Jaswant Singh Tolawal.

Ugrahan condemned the bank for not giving the entire MCL loan amount to farmers in cash, claiming that farmers were fleeced by some cooperative societies by providing them domestic goods at higher rates. He said besides the bank had also stopped payment of loan of Rs 18,000 for animal feed to the farmers. He said farmers had also been facing harassment as after computerisation of branches, they had to wait for getting loan amounts for hours in queues due to poor internet connectivity and shortage of staff.

Vishal Garg, Assistant General Manager (AGM) of Sangrur Central Co-operative Bank Limited here, said no cut on MCL loan amount had been imposed for farmers.

He said however, after computerisation, computers provided loan amount as per the components entered in the system. He said there was some problem in the connectivity of internet due to which farmers had been facing inconvenience. Senior manager of the bank Surinder Singh said that due to problem of connectivity, bank staff had been clearing the cheques of farmers by reaching the branches of the bank early morning on working days.