Publish Date: | Wed, 02 Mar 2022 08:31 PM (IST)
In 2021-22 only symbolic amount was kept in the budget
MP Budget 2022: Bhopal. (State Bureau). There will be no provision in the budget for the loan waiver scheme of the farmers, which became a major basis for the Congress’s return to power. The Shivraj government had made a provision of two thousand crore rupees in the year 2020-21 in view of the financial burden on the primary agricultural credit cooperative societies. Out of this, eight hundred crore rupees were given to the committee but now there will be no provision.
It is known that the BJP has termed the loan waiver scheme of the Kamal Nath government as the biggest fraud with the farmers. In the year 2021-22, only a symbolic amount was kept for this scheme in the budget. Every year about 25 lakh farmers take loans from cooperative societies.
The Kamal Nath government had implemented the loan waiver scheme for more than 51 lakh indebted farmers of the state. In the year 2019-20, a provision of more than three thousand crore rupees was made for this. In the first phase of loan waiver, it was announced to waive loans up to Rs 50,000 on the current account and Rs 2 lakh on the timeless account. In the second phase, loans up to Rs 1 lakh on current account were to be waived off.
Before this process would start, there was a change of power. However, it has been alleged by the BJP that no farmer’s loan is being waived. The farmers who used to make regular loan repayments also stopped repaying in the hope of loan waiver and they became defaulters. There was a lot of politics regarding this. When the BJP government was formed, Agriculture Minister Kamal Patel, in a written reply to the question of former minister Jaivardhan Singh, admitted that in 20 lakh 23 thousand 136 cases, a loan of seven thousand 108 crore rupees was waived.
Congress also made it an issue but it was of no use in the by-elections. In the budget also, a provision of two thousand crore rupees was kept, but only eight hundred crore rupees were given to the cooperative societies. This offset the amount that was adjusted against the lapsed loan. Since the plan belonged to the Congress government and it was not implemented, the provision has not been proposed in the budget for the financial year 2022-23. In its place, provision will be made in other schemes for the farmers.
Patwa government also did loan waiver – Before the Kamal Nath government, the Sudar Lal Patwa government of the BJP had announced loan waiver in 1990.
There will be a provision of one thousand crores for interest free loan
A provision of one thousand crore rupees will be made to provide interest free loans to farmers for Kharif and Rabi crops. This amount will be made available to the District Co-operative Central Banks as a grant. Similarly, about two thousand crore rupees will also be kept in the Chief Minister’s Farmer Crop Procurement Assistance Scheme. This amount will be given to the earning agencies. A provision of more than five thousand crore rupees will be kept for providing electricity to the farmers at a concessional rate. Two thousand crore rupees will be kept for adding the state share in the Prime Minister’s crop insurance.
Posted By: Hemant Kumar Upadhyay