Cong terms farmer loan waiver a farce
The Congress has demanded the Yogi Adityanath government to come out with a white paper on the ‘much hyped’ loan waiver for farmers. “The Yogi government should come out with a white paper as the state government’s loan waiver appears nothing more than a farce,” said All India Congress Committee (AICC) media incharge Randeep Singh Surjewala and Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee (UPCC) president Raj Babbar while speaking to media persons at party headquarters here on Saturday.
“The BJP-led government at the Centre and in the states are pushing the farmers to a death trap. On an average, 35 farmers are committing suicide every day and the number went up from 12,062 in 2015 to 14,000 in 2016,” claimed Surjewala. He further said of 2.15 crore small and marginal farmers, only 86.68 lakh were within the banking system.
He added that the remaining 1.28 crore farmers who took loans from moneylenders had been denied subsidy or other benefits of the scheme. Surjewala further said the BJP government had waived crop loan of Rs 30,000 crore as on March 31, 2016.
“The non-performing assets (NPAs) of Rs 6000 crore had also been waived but no relief was given to farmers who had drawn term loan,” he said.
“The governor’s address before the two Houses of state legislature, however, said the crop loan taken upto December 31, 2016 had been waived. But for the first time in UP’s history the governor’s address has been amended to change the date of loan waiver to March 31, 2016 and replace farmers with small and marginal farmers. This means the crop loans taken on March 31, 2016 that farmers failed to pay up to March 31, 2017 has been waived. Did the farmers fail to pay back any loan in the past one year,” he asked.
Surjewala said there was no clarity whether the state government had issued a government order (GO) to implement the loan waiver. He said the Modi government had decided not to make any contribution to the state’s loan waiver scheme. The UPA government had waived loans of farmers upto Rs 72000 crore across the country, he said.
Replying to a question, he alleged that the Yogi government had not been able to do anything during its two month in office. Instead, it had turned out to a warning government issuing 600 warnings during the past 60 days, he opined. Surjewala said the UP government was indulging in politics of ‘badla’ (vendetta) and ‘badli’ (transfers of officers). He added that the mysterious death of Karnataka cadre IAS officer Anurag Tiwari only raised questions about the government’s failure on law and order front.