UP Govt ponders over options to waive farmers' loans

The Uttar Pradesh government is thinking about raising loan in order to meet additional burden on the exchequer, to fulfill BJP’s commitment to waive debts of small and marginal farmers.

A finance department spokesman Wednesday said Finance Minister Rajesh Agarwal has already started deliberations with senior officials of his department for fulfilling this promise at the earliest.

The government will have to pay banks to meet the waived loan amounts of small and marginal farmers, and for bearing this burden it will have to look at options of either seeking grant from the Centre under the transfer to state head or raise loan on its own, he said.

BJP in its Lok Kalyan Sankalp Patra (manifesto) had promised to waive loans of small and marginal farmers, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said in his election speeches that writing off the farmers’ loans would be among the foremost tasks of the party’s government.

There are some 2.30 crore farmers in the state of whom 2.15 crore are small and marginal. They had suffered losses due to natural calamities in the recent past and were unable to repay their loans.