Khattar tries to project ‘pro-farmer’ image via sops

CHANDIGARH: The first Manohar Lal Khattar-led BJP Government is trying to project a “pro-farmer” image through a slew incentives to farmers, including a waiver of their electricity bills, rescheduling of crop loans and loans to the farmers for next crop at a zero per cent rate of interest.

Pradeep Sharma

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 27

The first Manohar Lal Khattar-led BJP Government is trying to project a “pro-farmer” image through a slew incentives to farmers, including a waiver of their electricity bills, rescheduling of crop loans and loans to the farmers for next crop at a zero per cent rate of interest.

The Khattar Government, which had been at the receiving end for its failure to implement the Swaminathan Commission report for remunerative crop prices to the farmers, has tried hard to shed its ‘pro-trader’ with sops which would provide the much-need relief to farmers.

Sources claimed it was for the first time in Haryana that the state government had decided that all farmers , irrespective of the extent of loss to their crops, would get the next crop loan at a zero per cent rate of interest.

Besides, first-time changes have been made while converting crop loans—advanced to farmers for six months (one crop) by HARCO Bank which, in turn, gets re-financed by NABARD—into short-term (three-year) loans. While the crop loan will be converted into a short-term loan even if the damage to the crop has been less than 50 per cent. An individual farmer will be taken as a unit, not the entire village, for assessing the damage. This is a significant departute from NABARD’s guidelines.

Meanwhile, farmers who suffered losses to the extent of 50 per cent or more to their crops will not have to pay power bills for one year covering both rabi and kharif crops. And those suffering lower than 50 per cent damage will get a 50 per cent rebate on their power bills.