Punjab Vidhan Sabha speaker Dr Charanjit Singh Atwal today said that the Punjab government has always safeguarded the interests of the farmers and that is why several new pro-farmer schemes and decisions have been taken. He said this while distributing allotment letters of tubewell connections to 71 farmers at a function held in Doraha town, here today. Dr Atwal informed that a total of around 250 tubewell connections would be distributed in Payal constituency.While addressing the farmers, Dr Atwal said that for settling farm loans of farmers, the Punjab government has made a new law under which banks or any private person cannot levy rate of interest of his own choice. He said that for any farm loan dispute, tribunals would be set up at district and state level. Similarly, an interest free farm loan scheme up to Rs 50,000 would be started for farmers this year, that would benefit more than one million farmers in Punjab. He said that for farmers with less than 2.5 acres of landholding, tubewell connections would be given on priority basis, whereas apart from this 1.5 lakh more tubewell connections would be given in the state.Dr Atwal also visited dozen-odd villages of Payal constituency, namely Lehal, Ber Kalan, Gosal, Ramgarh Sardaran, Dhudal, Malon Daud, Daulatpur, Chaumo, Sekhan, Timberwal, Jogimajra and Dhaul Kalan. Here, he distributed cheques worth more than Rs 1.25 crore to the village panchayats for various development works.Dr Atwal said that there is no shortage of funds with the Punjab government when it comes to development works.