Even as Yogi Adityanath government has allocated over Rs 36,000 crore towards fulfilling its top crop loan waiver scheme, the dispensation is gearing up for virtually ‘carpet bombing’ public places and media platforms for publicising the scheme.
The state information department has prepared a blueprint for extensive publicity to the flagship waiver scheme across Uttar Pradesh, especially hinterland, in the days to come.
The government would publicise its crop loan waiver messages through hoardings, posters and banners while making use of other mediums as well. It is aimed at serving dual purposes of not only propagating the scheme but also driving positive publicity from the exercise and cultivating a pro-farmer image of the Yogi dispensation.
Given the importance of the scheme, UP chief secretary Rajive Kumar routinely holds review meetings over its progress, since the days of actual disbursement of the waiver certificates to farmers is drawing nearer. It is likely that the scheme would start rolling from August 15, when India completes 70 years of its Independence.
The state has already constituted a well-defined backend support for the scheme to ensure no bona fide beneficiary farmer is deprived of the sop. A control room has been established at every district and helpline launched for dispensing information and redressing grievances.
The crop loan waiver is the first scheme of the Yogi government, which is likely to see the light of day in the weeks to come and it serves as a strong reference point for the government to establish its purported credentials of a pro-agriculture regime.
The Yogi government in its first cabinet meeting on April 4 had cleared the crop loan proposal amounting to over Rs 36,000 crore. In the recently concluded UP Assembly’s budget session, the proposal gained legislative approval as well and funds allocated towards the scheme estimated to benefit about 8.6 million small and marginal farmers.
So far, the data of 98 per cent beneficiary farmers have been fed across 12,000 banks, according to the latest official data. In the first phase, waiver certificates would be distributed to farmers having Aadhaar cards.
A high-level committee headed by Kumar and comprising other senior bureaucrats has been constituted for the implementation of the scheme, which covers crop loans sourced from banks during the 2015-16 financial year towards the procurement of seeds, fertiliser and pesticides.
The crop loan waiver would cost the exchequer Rs 30,729 crore. An additional Rs 5,630 crore would be incurred in writing off non-performing assets (NPA) accumulated by the different commercial and cooperative banks in the agricultural sector. Thus, the total relief to farmers amounts to Rs 36,359 crore, which is popularly termed as crop loan waiver.
However, the government had later said it was technically not a loan waiver, but ‘debt redemption’. “The government would be redeeming the debt of small and marginal farmers,” UP additional chief secretary (finance) Anup Chandra Pandey had said, speaking to media after UP Budget was tabled in the Assembly on July 11.