NEW DELHI: The Yogi Adityanath government in its first Cabinet meeting on Tuesday decided to waive off agrarian loans worth Rs 36,359 crore of nearly 87 lakh small and marginal farmers in Uttar Pradesh . The Centre would not help UP fund this massive loan waiver.The one “condition” in the decision, as per the UP government, is that the loan of only up to Rs 1 lakh of each such farmer will be waived off. In its election manifesto, BJP had promised to waive off entire farm loans of small and marginal farmers.93% of UP’s farmers, 2.15 crore to be precise, are small and marginal farmers. 86.68 lakh of them having crop loans from any bank will benefit.“Since marginal and small farmers generally can’t take big loans, we are waiving off outstanding loan of a farmer up to Rs 1 lakh. This will amount to Rs 30,729 crore of waiver. Further, NPA loan accounts of 7 lakh farmers worth Rs 5,630 crore is being waived off in full to bring them back into the banking mainstream. The Centre is not giving us any money for this… We will raise the money through ‘Kisan Rahat’ bonds. Given the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act, a state has to keep its fiscal deficit below 3% of its GDP,” UP minister Siddharth Nath Singh said.The opposition was quick to attack BJP, saying it had duped farmers. Former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav said BJP’s promise was for a full loan waiver without any limits.“The Rs 1 lakh limit is making crores of farmers feel duped…this is cheating with them,” Yadav tweeted. “Neither in its manifesto nor in the speeches of the PM was it ever mentioned that there would be a limit of Rs 1 lakh on the loan waiver. BJP won on a promise of full waiver, and it has taken farmers for a ride,” SP spokesman Sunil Singh Yadav told ET.“The promise of BJP is incomplete. The hope of farmers has been crushed,” Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said. The UPA government in 2008 had waived off Rs 60,000 Cr worth of full loans of farmers across India and won big in 2009.With this step, BJP, which promised farm loan waiver after Congress had earlier promised the same during Rahul Gandhi’s Deoria-Delhi Kisan Yatra, is expecting rich political dividends in UP during the 2019 general elections.“This will be a day written in golden words in UP’s history… This is a step towards Ram Rajya in UP and no other state has taken such a big step for farmers since independence,” UP deputy chief minister Dinesh Sharma told ET.BJP President Amit Shah also congratulated the Yogi government. “The loan waiver relief is being given considering the difficulties being faced by farmers continuously for last three years due to floods, drought and hailstorm,” Siddharth Nath said at a Cabinet briefing.It was earlier estimated that loans worth Rs 62,000 crore would be waived off. The state has been facing an agrarian crisis since 2014. While the per capita income of a person in the state rose by 3.2%, that of a farmer rose by only 1.2%. 78% of UP’s population is rural and 68% depends on agriculture.