Adityanath keeps poll promise, waives farm loans of ₹ 36,359 cr
5 April 2017 3:28 AM IST
The Uttar Pradesh government on Tuesday cleared a Rs 36,359-crore proposal allowing waiver of loans for marginal and small farmers of the state.
The decision was taken at the first cabinet meeting of the BJP government, presided over by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.
Briefing the media after the meeting, Health Minister Siddharth Nath Singh said that with this, the promise made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bharatiya Janata Party President Amit Shah, during assembly polls to farmers of the state, has been fulfilled.
He also said that of the total 2.30 crore farmers in UP, 92.5 per cent or 2.15 crore were small and marginal.
The waiver by the state government applies to loans taken by these farmers against seeds for wheat and paddy crops, besides pesticides and fertilisers. In all, the amount which is being waived comes to a total of Rs 30,729 crore, the minister said. The waiver would apply to loan amounts of Rs 1 lakh.
Singh also said that there were around seven lakh farmers who defaulted on loans taken and now bore the non-performing asset tag. The government has also decided to write off all their loans, amounting to Rs 5,630 crore. In all, the loan waiver amount cleared by the state cabinet is to the tune of Rs 36,359 crore, he said.
Singh noted that since the state was bound by the law on fiscal discipline which puts a condition to cap fiscal deficit to under 3 per cent of the GDP, the state would raise funds for the loan waiver through a 'Kisan Relief Bond'.
Modalities of this bond are being worked out and it would be cleared during the forthcoming budget session of the state assembly, he added. The loan waiver would apply to all banks, including cooperative banks.
Other sops extended to the farmers of the state include enhancing the target of wheat purchase in the first phase to 80 lakh tonnes, opening up of 5,000 wheat purchase centres and giving of Rs 10 per quintal against carrying and stocking charges over the Rs 1,625 minimum support price.
The Chief Minister also constituted a committee headed by Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya and comprising ministers Dara Singh and Surya Pratap Shahi to find out ways to provide relief to the state's potato growers.
Madras HC orders waiver of farm loans for all
The Madras high court on Tuesday asked the Tamil Nadu government to waive farm loans obtained by all farmers, instead of limiting the benefit only to those owning less than five acres of land.
The court also restrained officials from initiating any penal or recovery proceedings against farmers who had defaulted on repayment of crop loans. The ruling will mean an additional financial burden of Rs 1,980 crore to the Tamil Nadu government, and it will benefit 3.01 lakh farmers who fall in the 'other' category.
The June 28, 2016 order granting the loan waiver scheme cost the government Rs 5,780 crore and benefited 16.94 lakh marginal and small farmers who owned up to 2.5 acres and up to 5 acres of land respectively. Calling the categorisation that left out other farmers as discriminatory and not an intelligible criterion, a division bench of Justice S Nagamuthu and M V Muralidharan, without striking down the government order, directed the government to expand its scope to cover all farmers irrespective of the land owned by them. The matter pertains to loans obtained from primary agricultural cooperative banks till March 31, 2016.
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