How to avoid debt trap, union teaches labourers

Tribune News Service

Faridkot, December 11

To make agricultural labourers in the area understand the debt better and how to avoid getting trapped, the Punjab Khet Mazdoor Union (PKMU) has started organising teaching camps in villages.

Retired teachers and other volunteers are teaching mathematics to daily wagers, migrant labourers and poor farmers so that they can calculate the increasing burden of debt on them.

Most of these labourers don’t know how the exorbitant rate of interest they agree to pay to moneylenders and shopkeepers in villages and towns is putting them in big trouble. The accumulated interest gets more than the principal amount, said Buta Singh, a retired teacher and senior PKMUfunctionary, while holding one such camp at Nangal village here.

“Besides teaching how to calculate their debt in these camps, we are discussing methods that can help farm labourers avoid falling in debt traps,” said Buta Singh.

Amrik Singh, district president, PKMU, said a study on 1,618 families of labourers in six districts in the Malwa region had revealed that every family unit was under a debt of Rs 77,000 on an average and these debts were increasing every year. Besides demanding a waiver of debts on the pattern of waiver to farmers, the PKMU is also holding a campaign in these camps, demanding the state government to implement effectively the Punjab Land Reforms Act.

“Any individual or company holding more than the permissible 17 acres stands to lose the surplus land under the Act. This surplus land needs to be allotted to the landless daily wagers,” said Gurpal Singh, district general secretary, PKMU. “We are organising a state-level rally on January 6 to raise these demands of farm labourers,” said Buta Singh.