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DEBATE (1)

I always admired you Saroj ji ..A great lady. A big hearted human.

Keep up the good work

Bablu Kumar

 

DEBATE (2)

We salute your efforts Madam. You are always there to help the people of Durg/Bhilai. 

Sonu Prasad

 

DEBATE (3)

Supriya Sule is showing political maturity and she deserves.

Rajendra Kothari

 

Angels roam around as men

Peasantry of West Punjab comprising mainly Sikhs and Hindus, was almost rendered pauper in 1947. With the super human efforts of S.Tarlok singh and S.Mohinder Singh Randhawa, both legendary ICS officers,  the peasantry got lands in lieu of the lands left by it in Pakistan, on war footing, though with substantial cuts. However the farmers did not have the money for seeds, bullocks, fertilizers and implements etc to cultivate those lands. Small amount of loans called taccavis were disbursed to them, for the cultivation purpose. Similarly some loans were advanced for building/repair of houses. Income from the agriculture generally remained elusive, causing piling up of loan amounts, along with interest and penal interest. The farmers ,who were in position to repay the loans, faced different kinds of problems, which were equally horrifying and embarrassing for the already distressed multitude.

Our family had got such loans to the tune of rupees four thousands. My father, who had also got a government job at Amritsar, used to regularly pay the installments. But, invariably we would get demand notices of the money, which we had already repaid with interest and penal interest. On the day we received recovery notices, a shadow of gloom and sadness pervaded over our home. My father would get hold of the treasury receipts, get leave from the office and proceed to Ferozepore, where the land had been allotted to us, to get the accounts reconciled and settled. On his returning home,  he would profusely abuse the clerks ,responsible for issuing the notices, in spite of the fact that the loans had been repaid. He would also narrate the travails of travel from Amritsar to Ferozepore. Harike barrage had not been constructed then. Punjab roadways bus would go up to Harike, the passengers would get down there to get on to the boats to cross the confluence of Sutlej and Beas rivers. After crossing the rivers, a bus would take the passengers to Ferozepore. Harike barrage came into existence only in 1953.Next year the same notices with the addition of interest and penal interest would reappear to make our life hellish. The tehsil officials acted like agents of tyranny, not thinking of the countless miseries of the peasantry. I was in BA part 2,when my father told me to go to Ferozepore, to get the matter settled as he was not well. Since we had made our residence at Amritsar, I was terrified to think of visiting a tehsil or deputy commissioner's office at Ferozepore. I had natural aversion to the haunted  looking buildings of tehsils and police stations, unaware of the fact that i will have to spend many years in such buildings. I went to Ferozepore and as advised by my father, I went to meet the deputy commissioner.

While entering his room, I was trembling. However that gentlemanly looking noble man listened to my problem and called both the branch officer of revenue branches and Assistant superintendent revenue. On that very day the tehsildar and wasil baqi nawis were also summoned by him. It was revealed that such challans were allowed to pile up and were not  regularly incorporated in the relevant registers  of accounts. Resultantly, thousands of ill-fated farmers, who had to leave heart, hearth and land in Pakistan, suffered this tyranny of repeated notices. The deputy commissioner suspended the tehsil employee and put on duty extra staff to incorporate the pending challans in the account books to update the record.

Our purpose was served. It was coincidental that after a decade , I joined civil service and was posted in the same district. I made discreet inquiries as to what had happened to thousands of people, who used to repay the loans with great difficulty but still the account books showed them as loan defaulters. I was told that one deputy commissioner would himself sit throughout the night to get the accounts records completed. He also got the proclamations made in the villages to the effect that if anyone was facing such  problem, he could directly meet him. Patwaris and qanungos also spent day and night to get receipts from the people and got those  incorporated in the record. The deputy commissioner had accomplished this small looking great work  to provide immeasurable relief to thousands of God forsaken human beings. The people remembered such a noble administrator S. Kuldip Singh Virk for very long..

Surinderjit Singh Sandhu

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