The disruption of rail traffic movement in Punjab entered its fifth day today, on December 24, as the protesting farmers continued to block the railway tracks despite Chief Minister Chiranjit Singh Channi announcing a loan waiver for the cultivators in debt.
“(Chief Minister) announces to clear cases of debt waiver for loans up to Rs2 lakh of remaining 1.09 lakh small & marginal farmers worth Rs 1200 crore. Also announces to include these farmers with loans up to Rs 2 lakh of PSCADB (Punjab State Coop Agriculture Development Bank Limited) under the ongoing farm debt waiver scheme,” the official Twitter handle of the Punjab Chief Minister stated today.
Thousands of farmers under the banner of Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee (KMSC) launched the ‘Rail Roko’ agitation on December 20 in Amritsar which soon spread to other parts of Punjab. It is learnt that protesters have blocked railway lines in Devidaspura, Tarn-Taran, Hoshiarpur, Ferozepur, Moga, Fazilka, and Jalandhar which has led to the disruption of the movement of almost 128 trains.
The protesting farmers demand waiver of farm loans, payment of compensation to the families of farmers who died during the protests at the Delhi border and government jobs for the family members of the deceased.
“Ye CM ka announcement bas political khel hai… election aane wale hain to uske liye bas ek jumla hai taaki log inhe vote den aur ye power me aa saken,” Ranjit Singh, a marginal farmer from Amritsar who has been protesting at the railway tracks for the past five days told Gaon Connection. (The chief minister’s announcement is merely a political gimmick. Elections are about to happen, it’s just a poll-rhetoric. All they want is to return to power)
Another protester, Gurlal Singh Mann who hails from Ludhiana’s Mann village asserted that he would not go back to his village and shall continue to block the railway tracks unless the demands are not only accepted but also fully implemented.
“Between 28th to 30th September, we had blocked all Deputy Commissioner’s offices in Punjab. At that time, we met Punjab’s Deputy CM Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, along with the agricultural minister Randeep Singh Nabha and a few other local MLAs who assured that our demands will be met within 10 days. It’s been 2.5 months since then but none of our demands have been fulfilled. How much time should we give to these ministers to fulfill our demands,” Mann questioned.
An official statement quoted that the Punjab government had already waived loans of 563,000 farmers to the tune of Rs 46,100 million. 134,000 small farmers got relief of Rs 9800 million while 429,000 lakh marginal farmers benefited from loan waiver of Rs 36,300 million.
‘High time government should be held accountable’
Ranjit Singh, the protesting farmer further said that the government should refrain from making hollow promises.
“They don’t even have enough funds to implement the debt waivers. They should have a proper policy as to how they would waive off the loans. The farmers are too tired to believe such hollow statements
It’s high time the farmers in Punjab held the state government accountable,”
“Between 2017 and 2020, the state government has been promising to waive farmers’ loans but nothing has happened on ground,” Singh added.
Farm loan waiver — a long standing demand
Meanwhile, farm loan waivers have been a major reason for contention amongst the cultivators in Punjab.
A study, titled Indebtedness among Farmers and Agricultural Labourers in Rural Punjab, sponsored by the New Delhi-based Indian Council of Social Science Research, revealed in 2017 that 85.7 per cent of farming households in the state are under debt.
The average amount of debt per farm household in rural Punjab is Rs 552,000 that were incurred for the purchase of farm inputs and machinery.
But these investments in no way led to an increase in income, due to the rising input costs and a near freeze in the minimum support price (MSP) of wheat and paddy whose cultivation accounts for 85 per cent of cultivated farm area in Punjab
As per the 2017 study, the collective debt of Punjab farmers, which stood at Rs 57,000 million in 1997, had risen to Rs 98,860 million in 2002, Rs 210,640 million in 2005 and Rs 350,000 million in 2015. As much as 64 per cent of the total farm income goes into repaying loans, it added.
Also, according to the Agricultural Census 2015-16, about 14 per cent of farmers in Punjab are marginal farmers (owning less than a hectare of land), whereas about 19 per cent (owning less than two hectares of land) are small farmers.
