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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | The loan-waiver mountain -Jayanta Roy Chowdhury

The loan-waiver mountain -Jayanta Roy Chowdhury

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published Published on Jun 12, 2017   modified Modified on Jun 12, 2017
-The Telegraph

New Delhi: If the Narendra Modi government caves in and grants a nationwide farm loan waiver, the tab could surge to a whopping Rs 3 lakh crore, dwarfing the UPA's initiative in 2008 that cost a little over Rs 52,000 crore.

"We have warned that the exchequer will go bust if we grant a general amnesty on farm loans, which will cost over Rs 3 lakh crore," a senior finance ministry official said.

A loan waiver announced by the new BJP government in Uttar Pradesh has triggered a clamour for similar relief from several states. Today, the BJP-led government in Maharashtra formally announced it would write off loans taken by farmers, following which they called off a strike.

It was not clear how much the latest waiver would cost. A joint committee of officials and leaders of farmers will work out the details.

Last week, when the Maharashtra government had offered to write off unpaid loans amounting to Rs 30,500 crore, the farmers had insisted on a waiver of all loans, totalling Rs 36,000 crore. Today, the farmers accepted the new offer and one leader claimed that all loans would be waived.

The Union finance ministry has held several rounds of talks on loan waivers but the nub of it is that the Centre has refused to pick up the tab: it wants the states to pay the bounty out of their own resources.

The Reserve Bank has already backed the government's stand, contending that any farm waiver largesse will be hugely inflationary and restrict the central bank's wiggle room to cut interest rates.

But political compulsions have often smothered economic prudence in the past and officials fear they may be forced to "go under the scalpel".

"We are not sure what decision will finally emerge," a finance ministry official said, amid growing restiveness in the country's farmlands over the increasing disconnect between government statistics that show the agriculture sector growing at a pacy 4.9 per cent (0.7 per cent in 2015-16) and the stark reality on the ground where farmers are unable to pay their debt because of the measly returns they get on their produce.

The situation has become deeply embarrassing for the Narendra Modi government, which had grabbed Lal Bahadur Shastri's powerful slogan of the sixties - Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan - to wrap its message to farmers ahead of the Uttar Pradesh elections and has continued to use it extensively since.

Soon after the BJP won the Uttar Pradesh elections, the Centre had, partly to live up to its commitment to being pro-farmer, agreed in an unprecedented move to underwrite a farm loan waiver worth Rs 36,000 crore announced by new chief minister Yogi Adityanath.

"We had expected rational policies from this government... but their loan waiver move was a case of aa bael, mujhe maar (an open invitation to be gored by a bull). The government is now facing similar demands from all over," said M. Govinda Rao, economist and former member of the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Committee. "Fiscally, this could be disastrous for them."

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The Telegraph, 12 June, 2017, https://www.telegraphindia.com/1170612/jsp/frontpage/story_156415.jsp#.WT4A4MP9ytM.twitter


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