WAIVER PROCESS TO START BY MONDAY, DECLARES MANPREET

Education will open floodgates of opportunities for your children in diverse fields, besides farming. Farmers must skip a meal, if need be, to educate their wards. MANPREET SINGH BADAL, finance minister

FARIDKOT: The Punjab government will start its farmer loan waiver process in the state by Monday, state finance minister Manpreet Singh Badal has said. Addressing a gathering on the annual Baba Farid Mela in Faridkot on Friday, Manpreet added that the government also wanted to give sugarcane farmers their due as the waiver will start from Amritsar, Gurdaspur, Ferozepur and Fazilka.

The state government has prepared a notification that cannot be issued until the election commission of India clears it, as the code of conduct is in place with the Gurdaspur bypoll scheduled for October 11.

Speaking at the inaugural session of the 50th Kisan Mela of Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) in Ludhiana, he said, farmers should rather forego a meal than not send their children to school.

“Education will open floodgates of opportunities for your children in diverse fields apart from agriculture,” he said, adding, “farmers must skip one meal to educate their wards”.

The real development, he said, is not in terms of silver roads and golden walls, but in income enhancement, and a happy and respectable life.

“Punjab may progress, but if its farmers are not happy, then state can never be happy,” he observed.

The state has made substantial contribution in 70 years, but now farmers need to shift from paddy-wheat cycle to alternate crops, he added.