Farmers refuse to pay up till poll results
With political parties playing the loan waiver card to woo farmers during the Uttar Pradesh assembly election, small and marginal cultivators in the Faizabad-Ambedkarnagar region are refusing to pay up, at least till the poll results are declared.
Be it the Congress, the BJP, the BSP or the SP, all have promised loan waiver for farmers if they form the next government in UP.
Now bank officials are confronting hostile villagers who are not willing to pay their dues in anticipation that the next state government will keep its promise and waive their crop loans.
It was Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi who first raised the loan waiver issue in his khat sabhas during his Deoria to Delhi Kisan Yatra in September last year. Amit Shah, the BJP national president, also promised crop-loan waiver and interest free crop loan for small and marginal farmers while releasing the party’s manifesto for Uttar Pradesh assembly polls in Lucknow last month.
The BJP had promised many sops for farmers of which croploan waiver of small and marginal farmers is a prominent one.
Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati has promised to waive all farmers’ loans up to Rs 1 lakh.
Chief minister Akhilesh Yadav is also assuring farmers of all help in his election rallies.
Majority of the crop loans availed by farmers in Uttar Pradesh are from rural branches of nationalised banks through Kisan Credit Cards, a scheme of the Centre.
Ram Naresh, a farmer from Baragaon, around 45 km from Faizabad, decided not to repay his loan of Rs 50,000 soon after he got to know about the BJP and other political parties poll promise of crop-loan waiver.
“Farmers have decided not to repay their crop loan. They will wait for the outcome of assembly poll result,” said Naresh.
Asked why he has decided not to repay his loan, Manoj Rawat, a farmer, said: “The BJP has promised to waive crop loan if it comes to power. I will wait for the election result.” “Our larger interest is to avail the crop loan waiver which the BJP has promised in its poll manifesto,” said Rajkaran Maurya, another farmer.
Another villager Santosh Prasad of Baragaon has also decided not to repay his croploan. And the reason is same.
“What if I repay my loan and the loan waiver promise is kept? In such a scenario, I will be at a loss,” said Prasad. Senior bank officials, however, want the dues cleared before the end of financial year, coming March 31.
“The financial year is about to end. There is constant pressure from senior officials to realise crop-loan dues by the end of March 31. But the ground reality is that no farmer is willing to repay loans,” said Shiv Baksh Singh, manager, of the Baroda UP Gramin Bank, Baragaon, Faizabad district. In the Baragaon branch alone, 1300 farmers have turned defaulters. The Baroda UP Gramin Bank, a part of the Bank of Baroda, has 93 rural branches in Faizabad and Ambedkar Nagar region. Other nationalised banks like the State Bank of India, Punjab National Bank and the Union Bank have also rural branches in Faizabad and Ambedkar Nagar region. They are also facing the same situation.
(Names of farmers have been changed on request)