Award-winning panchayat seeks farm loan waiver

Mansa: Having bagged the Rashtriya Gaurav Gram Sabha Puraskar by the Union ministry of panchayati raj and rural development, the gram panchayat of Tamkot village in Mansa district has become the first in the state to speak up for waiving of all institutional and non-institutional loans of farmers and farm workers.
Before leaving for Jamshedpur in Jharkand to receive the award, the Tamkot panchayat members had passed a resolution on April 20 seeking loan waiver for farmers and labourers.According to a survey conducted by Punjabi University, Patiala, Punjab farmers had an outstanding debt of over Rs 69,000 crore, out of which Rs 12,874 crore was borrowed from private lenders. Returning to Tamkot on Thursday, the panchayat members announced to pursue the loan waiver demand earnestly and motivate other panchayats to pass similar resolutions. They said there was an urgent need to write off loans especially after the case of a farmer and his mother committing suicide in Barnala village on April 25 to save their land.
Tamkot panchayat members, led by sarpanch Ranjit Singh, first to the Mansa district administrative complex (DAC) where farmer activists have staged a sit-in since April 3 for loan waiver and employment generation. From DAC, they were taken to village Tamkot in a convoy.
"Our panchayat passed a resolution on April 20, in the presence of rural development department officials, for waiver of all loans of farmers and farm labourers and to enact a law to provide employment to the jobless as per their qualifications. We will pursue the implementation of our resollution at the highest levels," sarpanch Ranjit said.
Tamkot is the only panchayat in Punjab to be controlled by radical left outfit CPI(ML) Liberation. Before getting Gaurav Gram award, carrying a cash prize of Rs 10 lakh, Tamkot panchayat was honoured with Rs 5 lakh for best performance in the implementation of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) on February 2. It also got Panchayat Sashtikaran Award in 2015, which carries a prize money of Rs 5 lakh. Rural development minister Sikander Singh Maluka said his ministry would look into the panchayat's resolution.