BHOPAL: Seven months of post the Parliamentary polls, the state government is trying to resume farmers’ loan waiver scheme.
Before the Lok Sabha elections, the government waived the loans of 21 lakh farmers, but the scheme had to be stopped because of financial crunch.The government wanted to launch the second phase of the scheme from October 2, but a severe shortage funds got in the way.
To waive loans, the state government still needs Rs 16,000 crore, and in the budget, a provision for Rs 8,000 crore was made for the purpose, but funds were not available.
The government wants to waive the loans of five lakh farmers in the current financial year, and a scheme has been made for it.
More than 10 lakh farmers, whose loans will be waived, have been identified across the state. After the loans of ten lakh farmers are waived, only the controversial loan-waiving cases will be left.
At the beginning, the government will waive the loans of those farmers who have current accounts and taken loan worth Rs 1 lakh.
The government will also solve the problems of those farmers who took loan up to Rs 2 lakh and whose cases were rejected because of lack of documents under NPA.
For this, the government needs Rs 7,000 crore, and the process for waiving loan will start only after the amount is available.
The government recently found some way to generate revenue from mining and other sectors, that it may waive the loans. The government plans to waive the loan by this year-end.
Over Rs 2 lakh loan borrowers out of list: In its Vachan Patra, the Congress promised that it would waive the loans up to Rs 2 lakh. So those who have taken loan of more than Rs 2 lakh have been kept out of the list of farmers. Although it was decided that loans up to Rs 2 lakh would be waived, there had not been any accord on the matter.
