Farmers in U.P ask Yogi if loan waiver is a joke

The BJP government in its Uttar Pradesh election manifesto had promised farmers that it will waive all their loans of small and marginalised farmers, if brought to power and it won the election with a landslide victory, thanks mainly to its promises. Soon after becoming the Chief Minister of U.P, Yogi Adityanath announced a scheme to waive upto Rs 1 lakh in agricultural loans of farmers.

The cruel joke: 17,262 farmers get relief of less than Rs 1,000

Nearly 17,260 farmers in Uttar Pradesh have received loan waiver certificates for only ₹1,000 or less and out of this, 4,814 got loan waivers of amounts between ₹1 and ₹100, while 6,895 received waivers of amounts between ₹100 and ₹500 and another 5,553 got waivers between ₹500 and ₹1,000.

Farmers in shock

Adding to the already precarious situation faced by farmers all over the country, this new and ridiculously unexpected development created shock amongst the farmers of the state. In one particular case, farmer in Hamirpur’s Maudaha, Shanti, was shocked to get a loan waiver certificate of ₹10.37 when she had a debt of more than ₹50,000.

The opposition party (Samajwadi party) spokesperson, Rajendra Chaudhary said that by “waiving off just Rs 3 of farmers with loans of Rs 1 lakh the BJP government had cheated farmers.”

The U.P government tried to justify this latest debacle of the low amounts of loan waiver in some certificates by issuing a vague clarification. It said that apart from the loans, the interest outstanding too had been waived. “Due to this, in some cases the amount reflected is extremely small.”

So far the election promises have remained empty promises with cruel jokes like this being played on our farmers, now and then.

-UDAAN