Jaipur: The Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot has directed the commercial banks to stop the auction of agriculture lands of defaulting farmers in the state. The matter was turning out to be a big political issue as commercial banks have started serving notices to defaulting farmers and BJP was attacking the Congress government for not fulfilling the promise of loan waiver of farmers made during the assembly elections.
‘The commercial banks that come under the control of Reserve Bank have started the process of attachment and auction of defaulting farmers under the Removal of Difficulties Act. The state government has directed the officials to stop this process,’ said Gehlot in his tweet.
Putting the ball in the centre’s court Gehlot said that the state government has waived the farmers’ loans of cooperative banks and urged the central government to direct the commercial banks for one-time settlement of farmers’ loans. The state government is ready to bear its contribution for this.
He also indirectly held the Governor responsible for this and said that the state government had passed the bill to ban the auction of farmers’ agricultural lands up to 5 acres but the governor has not cleared the bill and it could not become a law. ‘ I am sad that such a situation has come as the bill could not become a law and hope that bill will be cleared soon to avoid such auctions in future,’ said Gehlot.
The Bjp state president Satish Punia said that CM is putting the responsibility on commercial banks and sending letters to them but the promise was made by the Congress and it is their responsibility to fulfil this.
Notably, Congress had promised the loan waiver of farmers in the last assembly elections and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had claimed that farmers loans will be waived within ten days of assuming power by Congress. Keeping the promise the Gehlot government had waived the loans of cooperative banks but loans of commercial banks are still to be waived. These banks have recently served notices in many districts to defaulter farmers for the auction of their land.
