see the seriousness of punjab govt of farmer's debt

Suicides due to debt
State has no money to count its ‘dead’ farmers
Kanchan Vasdev
Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, February 11
The state government apparently has no money to complete a survey to find out the number of farmers who committed suicide due to mounting debt. While the Rs 2 lakh compensation is yet to reach these families as promised, the state government is finding it hard to shell out the money to conduct a survey to find out the number of suicides even two years after it was announced.

Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, Punjabi University, Patiala, and Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, were sanctioned Rs 22, 39 and 34 lakh, respectively, to conduct a survey of 20 districts. The survey aimed to compensate the families after they were identified.

The PAU was entrusted with the survey in June 2008 and the other two universities were asked to collaborate with PAU in March last year. A grant of Rs 5 lakh each was sanctioned to the PAU and Punjabi University in June last year. Even this grant was credited after several requests to the treasuries as there was no money in government’s account. No amount was released to the GNDU.

The team of economists from PAU, led by Dr Sukhdev Singh, covered Sangrur and Bathinda districts out of the six districts entrusted for the survey with the university. These included Ludhiana, Moga, Barnala and Mansa. Punjabi University, Patiala, team led by economist Dr OP Miglani that was promised Rs 39 lakh, covered three other districts.

The GNDU could not cover a single district. “We were not given any money. So, we could not start any survey,” said Dr Gian Kaur, an economist and Principal Investigator. The three universities had decided to complete the survey within 10 months.

In the spirit of working for a noble cause the team of Punjabi University, Patiala, did not even claim the travel and other allowances.

The survey was ordered by none other than the Chief Minister, Parkash

Singh Badal himself on April 27, 2007. He had first asked the administration to conduct the survey. Later, the government decided to hand it over to the three universities.

Chief Secretary, Government of Punjab, SC Aggarwal, said he did not know anything about the issue and Financial Commissioner (Development), Navreet Kang, is the right person to be contacted over the same. Feigning ignorance, Kang said Financial Commissioner (R) AR Talwar could say something as the Revenue Department was handling the survey. Talwar said he joined his office two days ago and required time to go through the files.

Bharti Kisan Union (Ekta) had released a list of 2,860 farmers in 2006, who had committed suicides.

The data was collected by farmers’ bodies in eight districts of Punjab over the last 15 years. The figure stands at Sangrur (1,046), Bathinda (750), Moga (475), Mansa (424), Ferozepur (77), Muktsar (61), Faridkot (25) and Ludhiana (12).

(published in The Tribune : http://www.tribuneindia.com/2011/20110212/punjab.htm#13)