No loan waiver for rich farmers in Rajasthan

Struggling to arrange Rs 6,000 crore needed for the farm loan waiver, the Vasundhara Raje government on Thursday decided to keep several categories of farmers out of the purview of the waiver.

Among the categories which will not get benefit from the wavier are MPs, MLAs, ministers, central and state government employees, retired government employees and chairpersons of local civic bodies. Sources said that the chief minister has given her nod to keep big farmers out.

The decision was taken at a meeting of ministers called by Raje at her residence.

During the meeting, attended by minister Dr Ram Pratap, Ajay Singh Kilak, Yunus Khan, Prabhu Lal Saini, Rajendra Rathore, Arun Chaturvedi, Rajpal Singh Shekhawat and Pushpendra Singh, the cooperatives department made a presentation in which it was suggested that certain categories should not get the benefit of loan waiver.

Raje had in the budget announced a loans waiver of Rs 50,000 for all farmers who have taken loans from cooperative banks, benefitting some 30 lakh farmers.

The government is scrambling to arrange credit for the loan waiver. Kilak said the government will approach the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) and National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC) for Rs5000 crore for which the government will provide guarantee.

“The state government has agreed to offer a bank guarantee for taking a loan of Rs 5,000 crore from banks to keep its promise of loan waiver to farmers of the state,” Kilak said.

“We will get 60 per cent funds from refinance that apex banks get from Nabard and 40 per cent from cooperative banks,” he said.

The government had budgeted Rs 2000 crore for the waiver but the burden on the state treasury due to the waiver to over 29 lakh farmers is expected to be close to Rs 8,000 crore.

Kilak said that the loan wavier camps that were to be held on May 26 and May 28 have now been postponed to May 31. “The camps have been deferred to May 31 when the chief minister will distribute the loan waiver certificates to farmers in Banswara district,” he said, adding that regular camps will be organised in June.

Kilak said that at the Banswara camp, loans of 1.94 lakh farmers amounting to Rs 250 crore would be waived.

He said farmers at the camp would also be given loans for the coming Kharif season, according to their eligibility. He said to give a safety net to the farmer; the government is giving Rs10 lakh accident insurance cover from April 1. The BJP government has hiked the insurance amount from Rs50,000 to Rs10 lakh.

With PTI inputs