Aditi Tandon
Tribune News ServiceChandigarh, April 5
There is finally some official word on the deepening crisis of rural indebtedness in Punjab and the havoc it is playing with farmers’ lives in the state. Disturbed by soaring suicide cases and the outstanding rural debt amounting to over 24,000 crore, the Punjab CM has decided to seek Centre’s intervention in the matter.
The decision comes following the April 3 Tribune story on farmers’ suicides in the state.
The CM has also ordered a detailed ground assessment of the situation to ascertain the extent of farmers’ suicides, their causes, the role of loaning agencies in the issue and the possible solutions.
During an unofficial meeting held at the residence of Deputy Chief Minister Rajinder Kaur Bhattal whose own constituency Lehra Gaga in Sangrur is infamous for debt-fuelled peasant deaths, Capt Amarinder Singh said he would approach Prime Minister Manmohan Singh with a request to help the state tide over the crisis.
He said the problem of rural debt in Punjab was so phenomenal that neither the state government nor the farmers and their families could solve it on their own. “The issue cannot be resolved except with the Centre’s help,” the CM said, before asking the Chief Secretary to formulate a detailed proposal in this regard within a week.
While the proposed plan is to ask the Centre for a relief package to clear the existing debt, it may not prove to be a sustainable solution to the problem which has permanent nature. Experts have long advocated the need to strengthen cooperative credit lending policy and encourage “just” structure of debt repayment.
In a statement issued today, Mr M.S. Gill, MP, whose expertise on the cooperative movement is well known appealed to the Punjab CM to restore Sir Chhotu Ram’s effective policies of debt conciliation in letter and spirit. He highlighted the need of the state’s intervention in preventing police and commission agents hobnobbing to rob farmers of their basic means of livelihood.
Speaking to The Tribune he said, “Punjab should immediately set up Debt Conciliation Boards in every district. Lead should be taken from the Punjab Relief of Indebtedness Act which was passed following the efforts made by Sir Chhotu Ram in 1934.”
The salient feature of the 1934 Act was that if a debtor had repaid the creditor an amount twice that of the principal or more he stood
discharged of his loan liability. The relief was given through the Debt Conciliation Boards. The Act also barred the jurisdiction of the civil courts and the debtors were exempted from arrest under this law.
Another legislation which can offer some solution to the problem of farmers’ suicides is the Punjab Debtors’ Protection Act 1936 (also passed with the help of Sir Chhotu Ram) which exempted the temporary alienation of ancestral property of farmers in execution of a decree of loan incurred by any predecessor in interest.
The Act clearly stated that farmers’ standing crops and trees could not be attached or sold off, like they are being done by commission agents in Punjab today.
