Bhopal: Pre-empting a BJP attack on the issue, the day-old Kamal Nath government lost no time in signing off on a farm loan waiver in keeping with its election promise of giving relief to farmers within 10 days of coming to power.
While the new CM has sent top officials for further research, the Finance Department is yet to receive a final amount on the total burden that will befall the exchequer.
Nath had cleared the file for farm loan waivers within 10 minutes of assuming charge, following which Principal Secretary Rajesh Rajora issued an order announcing the waiver of loans up to Rs 2 lakh extended by nationalised and co-operative banks.
Senior officers led by Rajora after huddled together at Mantralaya to discuss the loan waiver modalities and the meeting continued late into the evening. But the Finance Department is yet to know the final figure.
“We are yet to have a figure around which we can work following the farm loan waiver decision,” an officer from the department told News18 on condition of anonymity.
The officer, however, denied speculation that the state was facing funds crunch to even pay salaries. “Earlier, we used to receive remittance from the Centre early in a month. Now we receive it on 20th of every month so there is a bit of delay, nothing else,” the officer said.
Sources in the Department of Agriculture said they are working on details of the farm loan waiver.
According to estimates, 50 lakh farmers are under total loans of around Rs 56,377 crore. These amounts wary from Rs 54,000 to Rs 1.88 lakh. There are around 22.18 lakh farmers who owe around Rs 14,344 crore and have defaulted on payments.
With the state reeling under loans of around Rs 1.60 lakh crore, seeing the announcement through won’t be a cakewalk for Kamal Nath. He has, however, rejected speculation of burdening the common man with more taxes, saying that new sources of income would be looked into.
The BJP has questioned the Congress on the criteria of loan waivers, also objecting to the announcement that loans would written off only till March 31, 2018.
Farmers have also objected to the announcement, saying they normally repay their small-terms loans and obtain new ones on April 1 every year.
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