Siddaramaiah government waives Rs 50,000 of loan per farmer

BENGALURU: Giving clear indications of advancing next year’s elections to the Legislative Assembly, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah announced on Wednesday the state government’s decision to write off farm loans up to Rs 50,000, a move which would benefit more than 2.2 million farmers, but cost the state’s exchequer Rs 8,150 crores.

This announcement caps a series of please-all initiatives of the state government in recent months:  From contemplating higher quota in education and employment for several communities to wooing people belonging to two majority communities-Vokkaligas and Lingayats. While the government has tried to win over Vokkaligas by declaring Kempe Gowda Jayanthi as a state festival, a mandatory display of the portrait of 12th century social reformer, Basaveshwara, in all government offices could help Mr Siddaramaiah placate Lingayats who had drifted away from the ruling Congress thanks to pro-AHINDA programmes.

The Chief Minister’s announcement about waiver of loans released by state-owned cooperative banks and societies came during his reply to the debate on the budget. Mr Siddaramaiah, who originally denied plans to write off loans, adopted the same strategy on the issue of early elections. His stand, however, was contested by state BJP president B.S. Yeddyurappa, who maintained that such an important announcement at this juncture was a clear indication of early Assembly elections, perhaps in December this year.

Mr Siddaramaiah has also taken the wind out of the sails of Mr Yeddyurappa’s campaign that the state government was anti-farmer and that he would address a mega rally in Bengaluru in July in case the government failed to write off loans. The Kuruba strongman went a step further, saying he would write to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to direct public sector banks to waive loans of farmers.   

Loan relief for 22 lakh farmers: CM
Coming on the heels of Congress Vice President, Rahul Gandhi urging all states to waive off farmers' loans in view of the widespread drought in the country, the waiver has been announced with less than a year to go for the 2018 assembly polls  

Announcing it in the Legislative Assembly, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said it would benefit  22,27,506 farmers and cost the state exchequer Rs 8165 crore.

Replying to the debate on demands, he said farmers had taken short term loans amounting to over Rs 10760 crore from cooperative banks. While some had taken Rs 25000, others had taken upto Rs three lakh, interest free. "The government will waive off  Rs 50, 000 across the board irrespective of the loan amount,"  he explained.

Taking a dig at the Centre and RBI, he said, "We asked the Centre to waive off the farmers' loans taken from nationalised banks, but RBI Governor Urjit Patel, said this would imbalance the economy. He, then went on to write  off NPA worth over Rs 12000 crore.  Both the Union Agriculture  and Finance Ministers also said the Centre could not help in waiver of farmers loans.''

Recalling that the earlier UPA government had waived farmers' loans to the tune of Rs 75000 crore, Mr Siddaramaiah regretted  that although Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Punjab  had announced loan waiver, they had  not issued orders to  do it. "Our government will issue the order immediately,'' he declared.