Behera for uniform central policy on farm loan waiver

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Bhubaneswar: Putting the ball in the Centre’s court, state Finance Minister Shashibhusan Behera Thursday said the Union government should come up with a uniform policy for waiving off farm loans.
Speaking to reporters at the Secretariat here, Behera said, “After the elections in some states, there is a national-level debate on waiving off farm loans. However, the NITI Aayog’s pessimistic statement about farmers is unfortunate. The Centre has brought several national policies, be it the demonetisation or changing names of states and waiving off lons worth crores of rupees of industrialists.”
It may be mentioned here that the NITI Aayog Vice-Chairman Rajiv Kumar Wednesday said that farm loan waivers are just a palliative and not a long-term solution for the farmers.
Considering the huge debt burden on the farmers, the Centre should immediately bring a national policy in this regard, Behera added.
As farm loan waivers have turned into a rat race, most of the political parties are seen competing with each other due to political compulsion, as the general elections are due in 2019, the minister said.
“Odisha is not in the farm loan waiver race. Those who had not taken initiatives in this context or were sitting idle have all at once jumped into the bandwagon and are competing with each other now. Accordingly, the BJP-ruled states have too woken up,” Behera pointed out.
However, the state government is also examining what can be done so far loan waiver is concerned, he added.
“BJD in power in the state since the last 18 years, but they never thought about farmers’ welfare. The Congress governments in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan took just two days to waive off farm loans. Look at the contrast,” tweeted Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) president Niranjan Patnaik.
Reacting on the issue, state BJP spokesperson Golak Mohapatra said, “A farmer is unable to repay loan as he is not reaping the adequate harvest. It is because the farmer has no irrigation facility, no electricity and is not getting reasonable rate and there is no storage facilities.”