MP govt yet to finalise farm loan waiver plan

Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh government was yet to finalise the farm loan waiver policy even as the deadline set for writing off crop debt by Congress president Rahul Gandhi expired on Thursday.

The state government may come out with the policy setting the deadline to waive crop outstanding on January five, official sources told this newspaper here.

A draft policy on farm loan waiver was presented before the state cabinet which met under the chairmanship of chief minister Kamal Nath here on Thursday.

“A draft policy on farm loan waiver has been presented before the cabinet meet. The date set earlier for writing off outstanding may be revised to benefit all the farmers who have taken crop loans”, state minister Bala Bachhan, who was yet to allocate portfolio, told reporters here after the cabinet meeting.

A minister who attended the cabinet meeting told this newspaper that the state government was mulling the proposal to set December 17, 2018, when the chief minister took oath, the deadline to assess the crop outstanding and write them off.

The state cabinet may approve the final draft policy on the matter in its next meeting, scheduled to be held on January five.

Incidentally, Congress president Rahul Gandhi had earlier promised to waive the farm loans within ten days of Congress forming the government in the state. The deadline set by Mr Gandhi to write off farm loans in MP expired on Thursday.

The Congress in its election manifesto had declared to write off farm loans up to Rs 2 lakh for each farmer.

After assuming office on December 17, the chief minister ordered to waive farm outstanding in the state up to March 31 this year.

The decision has however invited criticism by Opposition BJP which described it as ‘betrayal of farmers’ by going for partial waiving of farm loans by the state government.

The BJP contended that the defaulters would only benefit by the decision to write off crop outstanding up to March 31, 2018, leaving the farmers who repay their loans regularly high and dry and demanded to waive outstanding up to December 31, 2018 to extend the benefit to all peasants.