PUNJAB GOVERNMENT HAS SHUT THE DOOR ON FARMERS SEEKING LOANS FROM COOPERATIVE BANKS: SUNIL JAKHAR

Raj Sadosh/Abohar.

Former Punjab BJP president Sunil Jakhar criticised Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann’s government for imposing a heavy burden on farmers seeking loans from cooperative banks.

Jakhar said that when farmers’ unions recently staged a protest in Chandigarh over agricultural debt and other farming demands, Punjab’s Agriculture Minister had given a written assurance on September 7, 2026, that action would be taken in the Vidhan Sabha to introduce a One-Time Settlement (OTS) scheme for farmers’ cooperative bank loans. However, he said, the latest Assembly session had concluded without the scheme being introduced.

He recalled that earlier, in June, Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann had announced a policy to increase borrowing limits under the Kisan Credit Card scheme and extend loans for additional crops. Contrary to these claims, he alleged, not a single new farmer account had been opened in cooperative banks, nor had any borrowing limit been increased. Instead, 11 district land mortgage banks had remained closed for five months, with both farmers and employees staging protests outside them.

Jakhar alleged that the Mann government had made major changes to cooperative bank lending rules, imposing an additional financial burden on farmers and making the borrowing process so difficult that they would effectively be unable to obtain loans.

He explained that farmers borrowing from cooperative banks through cooperative societies previously had to deposit a share contribution of Rs 3,300 for a loan of up to Rs 1 lakh and Rs 5,000 for a loan of Rs 2 lakh. The Mann government, he said, had increased these amounts to Rs 6,000 and Rs 9,000, respectively. Farmers would therefore have to deposit these amounts before obtaining a loan.

Highlighting what he described as another anti-farmer decision, Jakhar said that farmers previously did not have to mortgage land with either the cooperative society or the bank to obtain these loans. Now, he alleged, the government that claimed to champion farmers’ interests had made mortgaging land a requirement for borrowing.

He added that farmers had previously been eligible for a four-percentage-point interest concession even if they also held a Kisan Credit Card with another bank. Under the new rules, he said, this concession had been withdrawn.

Jakhar said that the people of Punjab were deeply distressed by what he called the Bhagwant Mann government’s anti-farmer policies. Instead of listening to farmers’ difficulties, he remarked, the government was busy singing “Chhalla.”

Referring to the Union government’s Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi scheme, Jakhar said that Rs 18,500 crore had already been transferred to the accounts of 9.34 crore farmers as the latest instalment. He added that the Modi government had disbursed a total of Rs 4.60 lakh crore to farmers under the scheme so far