Growers and small farmers on Monday threatened to launch province wide agitation if merger of the Punjab Provincial Cooperative Bank Limited (PPCBL) into the Bank of Punjab (BoP) was not stopped forthwith. They were speakers at a seminars organised by Kisan Board Pakistan (KBP) at Lahore Press Club (LPC) on Monday. The seminar was addressed by the President KBP Sardar Zafar Hussain Khan, Vice President Sarfraz Ahmad Khan, Major Taqveem Ahsan from Anjuman-e- Kashtkaran, Chaudhry Muhammad Abdullah from Aiwan-e-Zarat, Mian Anwar Pasha, Malik Imtiaz Shahid, Rana Iftikhar Ahmad Khan and Secretary Information KBP Chaudhry Akhtar Farooq. They said PPCBL has been serving the small farmers for the last 100 years and it is considered a "farmers friendly bank". It is the only Bank providing loans up to Rs 200,000 without any collateral/security and always followed the instructions of the State Bank of Pakistan in this regard, they added. The former provincial government, however, initiated the process of merger of this Bank (registered under the Cooperative Societies Act) with the Bank of Punjab, which is tantamount to murder of small farmers of the province, they asserted. They said under a conspiracy, funding by SBP to the bank was stopped which left PPCBL with no choice but reluctantly to discontinue the lending through its all farmer friendly schemes. They said that all farmers associations are against the merger and agitating against the step. They speakers demanded of the government to immediately stop the process of merger of PPCBL into BoP, otherwise millions of members / small farmers of more than 160,000 co-operative societies will start agitation campaign.