PM presses the waiver button

Mukesh Ranjan

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 22

Under pressure to honour the loan-waiver promise made to the farmers of Uttar Pradesh before the Assembly elections there, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Centre Government is bracing up to open a Pandora’s box as similar demands have started pouring in from other states, too. The government has asked NITI Aayog to make an “overall assessment” of the funds required and come out with a detailed implementation plan.

Noting that the Centre has apparently realised that it is not only the farmers in UP, but the peasants across the country might be requiring assistance in some form, sources in the government said NITI Aayog had been asked to firm up a plan in that regard.

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Politically also, the ruling BJP, which has already set on to the path of winning the 2019 Lok Sabha elections hands down, is looking at the issue to turn the emerging challenge for the government into an opportunity by capitalising doles electorally.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis recently led a delegation to Union Minister of Finance Arun Jaitley and his counterpart in the Ministry of Agriculture, Radha Mohan Singh, in the state’s bid to press for the farmers’ loan-waiver demand. “In a few months, the demand for an across-the-country scheme for loan waiver will gain momentum. Some ministers are also of the view that farmers were hit badly during 2014-16 due to hailstorms, below-normal and unseasonal rains. Therefore, a loan waiver for farmers across the country is not completely unreasonable,” said a senior official in NITI Aayog.

There is also a realisation within the government that a robust impetus to economy could only come from rural areas. “The golden phase of Indian economy was witnessed between 1998 and 2008. That period saw a massive splurge in rural areas for the implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and construction of roads,” the official went on to add.

In the past, over Rs 60,000 crore was spent by the Manmohan Singh government under the farm loan-waiver scheme.