NEW DELHI: The Narendra Modi led government on Thursday virtually made it clear that Yogi Adityanath’s government in Lucknow will have to find resources from the state exchequer for honouring its assembly election promise of a farm loan waiver A signal to this effect was sent by finance minister Arun Jaitley in the Rajya Sabha while replying to the discussion on Appropriation Bill on Thursday.“If any state government is capable and want to move in that direction, that state will have to find its own resources,” Jaitley said, responding to a clarification by Samajwadi Party member Naresh Agarwal about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s promise of a farm loan waiver during UP elections The finance minister, in fact, justified this position of the central government, suggesting that a statespecific decision could be discriminatory.“A situation will not come where one state will be helped, and other state won’t,” Jaitley said as an assurance, given the building up of a political demand for farm loan waivers in other states such as Maharashtra, Punjab, Rajasthan etc. Jaitley’s reply didn’t indicate that the central government is contemplating a farm-loan waiver at the national level.While the finance minister refrained from mentioning any state by name, his remarks were a clear indication that the new BJP government in Uttar Pradesh will have to secure its own resources to honour its promise of farm loan waiver for small and marginal farmers across the state.Top BJP sources, in this context, claimed that the party was clear about this position (no central help) at the time of formulation of its manifesto.The BJP source, in fact, claimed that a rough back-of-the-envelope calculation by the manifesto formulation team found out that such a promise would put a financial burden of over Rs 16,000 crore.At that time, the source indicated, it was planned that the BJP state government would take the liability of these farm loans and will negotiate with banks to pay this amount in equal installments (about Rs 4,000 crore) annually over the next four years.This was planned to ensure that the state’s budget doesn’t get imbalanced with one time repayment by the government and also ensure that it doesn’t spill beyond the tenure of its government.