Lieutenant Governor Kiran Bedi on Friday said if the government had followed her directions on loan waiver, farmers would not have been in distress.
Ms. Bedi said she was saddened to hear that the farmers were now dependent on private money lenders after the Primary Agricultural Co-operative Societies stopped credit flow to them following the delay in implementing the Cabinet decision to write off farm loans.
Following a report in The Hindu on farmers being forced to seek financial support from private money lenders after PACS stopped issuing fresh loans, Ms. Bedi said the situation could have been avoided had the government followed her direction to write off interest alone till the Cabinet decision to waive off farm loan got its approval from the Centre. However, the ruling Congress has blamed Ms. Bedi for delaying the implementation because of her decision to refer the matter to the Centre.
“Since there is a difference of opinion between the Administrator and the Council of Ministers on the matter, I have referred it to the President for a decision under the first proviso to sub-section (1) of section 44 of the Government of UT Act, 1963 read with rules 51 and 52 of the Rules of Business of Government of Puducherry, 1963. Pending decision by the President, the UT government is directed to take immediate action to convert short-term crop loan into medium term loan and advise banks to give agriculture loans to eligible farmers,” she reportedly wrote to the government in May.
Ms. Bedi told The Hindu that she had suggested to the government to write off interest.
The agriculture loans extended by PACS should be re-scheduled and the additional penal interest should be waived off, she said. “I have asked the new Chief Secretary to look into the issue and the matter to be addressed at the earliest,” she said.
‘Delay tactic’
Parliamentary Secretary to the Chief Minister K . Lakshminarayanan considered this “only as a tactic to delay the Cabinet decision.”
The Union Government had clarified that States/UTs are well within their rights to write off loans taken by farmers from co-operative societies and therefore there was no need to refer the matter to the Centre, he said.
“You cannot waive off interest alone. The principal amount will be added to the fresh loan and the debt burden will only increase,” Mr. Lakshminarayanan added.
