Click to play videoHoshiarpur (Punjab): Baisakhi or the harvest festival is being celebrated across Punjab. But the celebrations are not as joyous as they used to be because farmers are reeling under heavy debts.
“Over 89 per cent of the farmers are under heavy debt and this proportion is highest in the cotton growing belt,” says member of a survey committee Sukhpal Singh.
According to a survey by the Punjab Agricultural University, farmers in the state are under a debt of Rs 21,000 crore as they grapple with the twin problems of rising input costs and comparatively low returns.
The scenario is bleak across the state—from the pesticide polluted southern districts to the northern districts where the water table is going down every year. It's a deepening crisis in the nation's food bowl.
“Costs have gone up, seeds are expensive, we take loans but it’s difficult to repay them,” says farmer Gurnam Singh.
The debt-ridden farmers feel that the government is doing little to match the rhetoric of the leaders. Promises are all that they see coming. “Farmers should be given marketing facility, price and policy by the government,” local MP Avinash Rai Khanna says.
Promises are something that the farmers have been hearing for long. Disengaging them from the debt cycle is not an easy task. What is harder to find among such lush greenery are the happy faces of Punjab farmers this Baisakhi.
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