Cong calls loan waiver ‘arithmetic jugglery’

The Congress has termed loan waiver as an “eyewash” and “arithmetic jugglery”. The party also alleged that the announcement made by chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and facts about defaulters are different. Fadnavis said although the finance department permitted loan waiver worth Rs 15,000 crore only, the state has given package of Rs 34,000 crore.

Three days after the announcement of the farm loan-waiver scheme, the state Congress did a post-mortem of the scheme. The Congress also warned the state government that if the government failed to give a blanket loan waiver to farmers, they would not hesitate to again hit the street with the farmers for complete loan waiver. The Congress state president and MP Ashok Chavan on Tuesday said the government is misleading the people by announcing the loan waiver scheme.

“They had initially announced that the loan waiver scheme would help 89 lakh farmers. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said the scheme would directly write-off the loan of 40 lakh farmers. Cooperation minister Subhash Deshmukh said it would waive off the loan of 36 lakh farmers. The multiple statements have created confusion among commoners. Hence the government should come up with the details of the farmers who are actually going to get the benefits of this waiver scheme," Chavan said.

The Congress also objected to the move of one -time settlement (OTS) of farmers.