Punjab government has shut the door on farmers seeking loans from cooperative banks: Sunil Jakhar

Jalandhar, October 31, 2026: 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.
Speaking to journalists here, 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.
Jakhar 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.
He 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.
Jakhar explained that farmers borrowing from cooperative banks through cooperative societies previously had to deposit a share contribution of ₹3,300 for a loan of up to ₹1 lakh and ₹5,000 for a loan of ₹2 lakh. The Mann government, he said, had increased these amounts to ₹6,000 and ₹9,000, respectively. Farmers would therefore have to deposit these amounts before obtaining a loan.
He further said that previously, the share contribution was deposited with the cooperative society, allowing farmers to recover it easily when closing their accounts. Under the new orders, however, the contribution would have to be deposited with the bank, making its recovery a difficult task for farmers.
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. Consequently, farmers would have to deposit a larger share contribution upfront, face greater difficulty obtaining loans and pay higher interest despite mortgaging their land.
Jakhar alleged that the government had left cooperative banks without sufficient funds, leaving them unable to lend to farmers. Since the Cooperation Department was held by the Chief Minister, he said, responsibility rested with him.
Farmers needed money to purchase seeds, fertilisers and diesel for wheat sowing, he said. Yet, on the one hand, they were allegedly being exploited in mandis through deductions imposed during paddy procurement, while on the other, they were unable to obtain cooperative bank loans to purchase inputs for the next crop.
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 ₹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 ₹4.60 lakh crore to farmers under the scheme so far.