Over 17,260 farmers in Uttar Pradesh have received loan waiver certificates for only ₹1,000 or less under a scheme in which the BJP government had promised to waive farm loans of up to ₹1 lakh.
Of the 17,262 farmers, 4,814 got loan waivers of amounts between ₹1 and ₹100, while 6,895 received waivers of amounts between ₹100 and ₹500 and another 5,553 got waivers between ₹500 and ₹1,000.
Under the first phase of its farm loan waiver scheme, the BJP government said it had so far distributed loan waiver certificates amounting to ₹7,371 crore of more than 11.93 lakh farmers in the State.
According to a statement issued by the government, 41,690 farmers have received loan waiver certificates of ₹1,000-10,000 while the largest chunk, 11.28 lakh farmers, received waiver certificates of more than ₹10,000 each.
The government was forced to issue a clarification after criticism that some farmers received loan waiver certificates of inconsequential amounts under the loan waiver scheme.
A farmer in Hamirpur’s Maudaha tehsil, Shanti, was shocked to receive a loan waiver certificate of ₹10.37 even though she had a debt of more than ₹50,000.
Some farmers also reportedly received waiver certificates of less than ₹1, provoking the Samajwadi Party to accuse the Yogi Adityanath government of “cheating and humiliating” farmers.
SP spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary said that by "waiving off just Rs 3 of farmers with loans of Rs 1 lakh the BJP government had cheated farmers."
‘It’s interest component’
Pressed to explain the low amounts of loan waiver in some certificates, the government issued a vague clarification. It said that apart from the loans, the interest outstanding too had been waived. “Due to this, in some cases the amount reflected is extremely low,” the government said.
Fulfilling its election manifesto promise, the BJP government, in its first Cabinet meeting in April this year, had decided to waive farm loans, up to Rs. 1 lakh, of small and marginalised farmers.
Along with the Rs 30,729 crore cost of the loan waiver, the government would settle around Rs 6000 crore of NPA of seven lakh small and marginalised farmers, to whom the banks had stopped issuing loans, through a one-time payment.
