The global pandemic coronavirus continues to wreak havoc across the world. Many people have died due to Covid19 while many others are seriously infected with it. To control the spread of coronavirus in India, government had imposed all over the country. Today (14 April 2020) the lockdown deadline has been further extended till 3rd May. During this lockdown, people faced many problems but the most affected were farmers in the country.
Though, the Central as well as State Governments have taken several initiatives to provide relief to the farmers in this critical situation, like they were given some relaxations to do farm activities or go to the mandis. In this sequence, after the lockdown, the state government of Punjab has said that agricultural or farm loans of the farmers will be waived off. In fact, Punjab Finance Minister Manpreet Badal told that "A budget of Rs. 2000 crores is ready for loan waiver of farmers, but the time has been extended due to lockdown".
Badal earlier said that the under its flagship programme - Crop Loan Waiver Scheme, government has waived off the entire crop loans of small & marginal farmers with 5 acres of land and having loans up to Rs 2 lakhs.
He said farmers don’t need to worry if time gets extended due to lockdown. State government will fulfil the promise made to farmers. He said that these things have already been kept in the budget session for loan waiver of farmers. In the first phase, a camp will be set up in the headquarters to provide benefit to farmers. A complete list has also been taken from all banks related to agricultural loans. It must be noted that only loans related to agriculture will be waived off. This will include loans from KCC loan to paddy-seed loans. However, loan for agricultural equipment and tractor loan for farming has not been included in this.
