The Cooperation Minister, Punjab, S. Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa has denied the news reports appearing in a section of the media pertaining to the loan waiver of the farmers of village smaagh in District Sri Muktsar Sahib. The minister making the situation clear has said that as per the rules, the loan of eligible farmers is being waived off by the department.The minister further said that the government headed by the Chief Minister, Captain Amarinder Singh has till now waived off the farm loans to the tune of Rs. 4500 crore without any bias. He also said that in a first, the Punjab Government had chalked out a comprehensive plan to pull the farming sector out of the economic crisis which is not being digested by the opposition owing to the schemes’ success that explains why the political rivals are indulging in the misinformation campaign. He also added that in village smaagh of District Sri Muktsar Sahib, 37 farmers have been given loan waiver certificates to the tune of Rs. 27.92 lakhs.S. Randhawa also disclosed that in the probe conducted by the Deputy Registrar Sri Muktsar Sahib related to village smaagh, it has come out that those farmers with regard to whom the claims of non-waiver of loans have been made include Baldev Singh whose loan worth Rs. 16572, Rs. 35819 loan of Gurjant Singh, Rs. 49378 loan of Jaspal Singh and Rs. 82702 loan of Krishan Singh S/o Mithu Singh have been waived. Whereas in the photo published in the media, the farmers shown namely Hardeep Singh S/o Nirvair Singh, Krishan Singh S/o Surjit Singh and Mithu Singh S/o Sant Singh didn’t had any loan of cooperative societies standing against their names. The others namely Pritam Singh S/o Harnek Singh and Bohar Singh S/o Darshan Singh are not even members of the society.
The land of a woman namely Lakhwinder Kaur W/o Darshan Singh shown in the videoclip falls out of the jurisdiction of Smaagh Multipurpose Cooperative Society.Similarly, the Deputy Registrar Sri Muktsar Sahib has made it clear in his probe report that in the probe conducted with regard to one Parkash Singh, regarding whom the claim of 65 acres of land was made with a mention of loan waiver, yielded that in his family the loan worth Rs. 59696 of Gurjinder Kaur was waived and who has 24.36 canals of land as per revenue records. The loan to the tune of Rs. 78027 of Sukhdev Kaur W/o Sadhu Singh has been waived off and she has 32.29 canals of land in her name while Manpreet Singh S/o Gurdas Singh has 35.33 canals of land and his loan worth Rs. 94910 has been waived. So, all these have less than 5 acres of land.The Deputy Registrar has in his probe report found that the loans of 18 members of the cooperative society of the village have not been waived off due to the technical glitches. Regarding this, the committee formed on the level of the office of the SDM is taking the necessary action for loan waiver by removing the technical implications. He also elaborated that the loan standing against the name of any farmer as on 31st of March, 2017 is being waived off.S. Randhawa reiterated that the State Government is fully committed to waive off the loan of every eligible farmer. He challenged the opposition parties to stop the misleading campaign against the achievements of the Punjab Government and instead come forward to tell the common people regarding their own achievements, if any.