Hundreds of farmers, in Uttar Pradesh, have been handed out certificates that read their loans, worth 19 paise or a few rupees has been waived by the government, Hindustan Times reported.
One of the poll promises made by current UP CM Yogi Adityanath were of waiving farm loans up to Rs 1 lakh to ease distress. On Monday, in a meeting held at the district headquarters of Etawah, around 7,000 farmers were handed certificates that read a specific amount was waived. The benefit for 200 of them of the 7,000 was less than Rs 1,000 each.
Ishwar Dayal, a farmer from Etawah, got a certificate that read his outstanding farm loan amounting to 19 paise has been waived. According to a Hindustan Times report Dayal said he couldn’t believe that such a measly amount was waived.
I was shocked to see the certificate of waiver of Rs 10.37 given to me in Hamirpur. I fall in the category of small and marginal farmer... I was expecting that the government would clear Rs 1 lakh against my outstanding of Rs 1.55 lakh on Kisan credit card.Munni Lal of Maudaha told Hindustan Times.
Farmers expressed dismay poured in also from areas such as Jalaun, Kannauj, Mahoba and Farrukhabad.
Opposition leaders said measly amounts were being waived for farmers to show inflated beneficiaries, with leaders calling it the entire exercise a fiasco. “It is laughable,” Juhie Singh of the Samajwadi Party said to Hindustan Times.
State agricultural minister Surya Pratap Sahi, said the government was only living up to its promise. Sahi told Hindustan Times:
Where is the surprise if the government has distributed the certificate to a farmer waiving Rs 100 or even less if that is the amount the farmer actually owed to the bank? After all, we cannot make his dues bigger or smaller. There are also farmers who have had Rs 90,000 and more of their loans waived.
Rajesh Gupta, the additional director of agriculture, also found nothing wrong with the amounts waived, adding:
Many farmers who paid their dues to banks in 2016-17, but some amount, which in many cases has been found to be less than Re 1, remained unpaid due to various reasons. This included some mistake in interest calculation sometimes too. Now we have waived only that amount and issued certificates accordingly.
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)