LS polls: MP loan waiver hiccups may hit Congress

The cut-off date of March 31, 2018, announced by Kamal Nath govt for writing off farm loans is likely to benefit only 20% of the 92 lakh farmers in MP. The Opp. BJP is trying to capitalise on farmers’ anger over little gains from the govt’s scheme.

Bhopal: The Congress is going all out to ensure that the crop loan waiver promise that returned the party to power in Madhya Pradesh after 15 years in November Assembly polls does not turn out to be an albatross around its neck in the forthcoming general elections.

The ruling party has started sensing that the resource-starved state is in no position to implement its key promise of writing off debts of farmers up to Rs 2 lakh each, estimated to cost the state exchequer a whopping Rs 35,000 crore.

This appears to have forced the Kamal Nath government to fall back on a strategy to cover “at least” a section of peasants under the scheme by the time model code of conduct for the Lok Sabha elections comes into force, expectedly in the first week of March.

“We are mulling to cover only small and marginal farmers in the first phase under the scheme over a couple of months,” a senior officer in the state agriculture department involved in designing of the scheme, disclosed to this newspaper.

The move will help keep hope of other farmers, left out of the scheme in the first phase, thus preventing them from being disenchanted with the state’s Congress government, he added.

Accordingly, a cumbersome process has been mooted to screen the beneficiaries. The local cooperative banks have been directed to prepare lists of farmers eligible for getting benefit under the scheme and hoist them in the local panchayats.

The prospective beneficiaries have been categorised into three sections - those whose bank accounts have been linked to Aadhaar, those whose accounts have not been linked and those whose names did not figure in the list. They have been asked to apply in three different forms - green, white and red -respectively to get the benefit.

The state government has also declared that the farm outstanding during the period of April 1, 2007, to March 31, 2018, will be waived.

An allocation of Rs 5,000 crore has been earmarked in the second supplementary Budget for the purpose recently.

“Hardly 20 per cent of total 92 lakh farmers in MP will be benefitted if the cut-off date for writing off crop debts will be March 31, 2018,” said the president of farmers’ wing of state BJP, Ranveer Rawat.

“The loan waiver promise made in election manifesto of Congress has put no conditions and simply said farm loans up to Rs 2 lakh of each farmer would be written off. Then, why so many conditions are being put in the loan waiver scheme by the state government now? It amounts to cheating the farmers,” Mr Rawat said.

No wonder, resentment has begun to brew among peasants. “Hardly a couple of farmers in each village will be benefitted if the scheme under the present form will be implemented, sparking disillusionment among the majority of farming community in the villages against the state government,” a Congress leader said on the condition of anonymity.

Sensing the trouble ahead, the state government has issued another order extending the cut-off date for waiving the farm outstanding to December 12, 2018, when the Kamal Nath government took over charge.

The order has also stated that the crop loans repaid would be reimbursed.

However, the exercise to identify fresh beneficiaries following the order is yet to begin.

Incidentally, the state government has declared that the crop outstanding would be transferred to accounts of  beneficiaries between February 22-27, clearly indicating that the cut-off date of March 31, 2018 is yet to be revised to extend the benefits to other farmers.

“The loan waiver scheme may also leave the agriculture lending institutions particularly in cooperative sector in the red hurting lending in the coming Rabi season in April. This will further trigger farmer’s anger against the state government. The loan waiver scheme may end up as an albatross around the neck of Congress in the general elections,” Mr Rawat said.

However, Congress has devised a strategy to check BJP from fishing in troubled waters in the coming general elections.

“We will go to the people to assure that all the farmers will be covered under the scheme in phases over two financial periods to ensure their faith in our government is not eroded,” a Congress spokesman here said.