Modi govt hasn’t waived off any farm loan in last three years, says MoS Finance

Responding to a request in Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for Finance Shiv Pratap Shukla said that Union government has not implemented any farm loan waiver scheme during the last three years.

However, some state governments have announced their own schemes for such waivers, he said.

The Minister of State for Finance was responding to a request of the Karnataka government to the Centre to waive 50% of the agricultural loans of farmers from banks. The Parliament was informed on Tuesday.

"The state government of Karnataka has requested the Union government to waive 50 per cent of the agricultural loans availed by the farmers from commercial banks/RRBs/cooperative banks," Shukla said.

However, there is no proposal under consideration of the Union government to waive the loans, the minister added.

Recently, the newly elected governments in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh have announced farm loan waivers. Besides, Punjab and Karnataka governments have also waived loans of farmers.

The Agricultural Debt Waiver and Debt Relief Scheme (ADWDRS) was announced in the Union Budget 2008-09 and detailed guidelines were issued in May 2008.

The debt waiver portion of the ADWDRS 2008 was closed by its due date (June 30, 2008), while the debt relief portion of the scheme was extended till December 2009 and after further extension, closed in June 2010.

The scheme benefitted 3.73 crore farmers to the extent of ₹52,259.86 crore.

with PTI Inputs.