FM STARTS TALKS ON LOAN WAIVER

Finance minister Arun Jaitley on Friday initiated discussions on farm loan waiver scheme with the agriculture ministry and some states in line with the BJP’s promise at the time of UP elections.

Agriculture minister R.M. Singh, Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Tamil Nadu finance minister D. Jayakumar were among those who met Mr Jaitley to discuss various issues concerning farmers including the loan waiver scheme.

“We explained the problems being faced by farmers of Maharashtra. There are 1.8 crore farmers who had taken 1.05 lakh crore loans. Of this, loans of 31,000 farmers are overdue amounting to `30,500 crore,” Mr Fadnavis said after the meeting.

In case the debt is not serviced, then these farmers will be out of institutional credit, he said, adding that the NDA government has been trying to increase capital expenditure in the agriculture sector including drought relief.

“We have requested the government of India to design a scheme so the debt of 31,000 farmers can be waived. The government of Maharashtra would participate in the scheme as per the fiscal space of the state,” he said.

The finance minister has assured that the Centre is solidly behind the farmers in the country, he added.

Mr Jaitley assured that the Centre would consider their demands positively and come up with some scheme to help farmers in distress.

The delegation which met Arun Jaitley and R.M. Singh comprised Union minister Subhash Bhamre and state ministers Pandurang Fundkar, Subhash Desai, Divakar Raote, Eknath Shinde, Subhash Deshmukh, Babanrao Lonikar, Ramdas Kadam and MLAs Sanjay Kute, Prashant Bamb and Vijay Auty. — PTI