UDH minister Shanti Dhariwal at the secretariat on Saturday

JAIPUR: The farm loan liability of all farmers who had committed suicide in the state would be waived off totally and there will be no limit for their loans, said UDH minister Shanti Dhariwal, chairman of inter-departmental committee on loan waiver on Saturday. He was interacting with the media after the first meeting of inter-departmental committee to decide the modalities of the farm loan waiver that was held at the secretariat.

“We discussed at length about preparing a detailed report on the loan waiver. Our teams have been sent to those states where loans were waived. They will submit a report on how farm loans have been waived in those states. We will examine those reports as well,” said Dhariwal after the meeting. He said the teams have been sent to Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Punjab and few other states. Official teams will be sent to few other states as well.

Reiterating the government commitment to loan waiver, he said, “Rahul Gandhi promised loan waiver in 10 days, we announced it within two days. The government is fully committed towards waiving farm/crop loans up to Rs 2 lakh. But the modalities and eligibility had to be worked out.” The next meeting is on January 10 after Rahul Gandhi ’s visit on January 9. “I hope after next two meetings we will be able to submit a final report to the chief minister on the implementation of the scheme,” said Dhariwal.

“All the members of the committee have openly expressed their views in the meeting. We have also discussed with the officials how to recover the money that would be spent on loan waiver,” informed the minister. “I am confident that the process of loan waiver will definitely start before Lok Sabha elections. We are also discussing whether to consider both loan defaulters and non-defaulters,” he said replying to a query.

When asked about the money, he said “It is not about Rs 18,000 crore or Rs 20,000 crore. Only after the eligibility criteria is finalised, we can say how much burden it will put on the exchequer. We want to implement the scheme as soon as possible.” Asked about BJP criticism of loan waiver, he said, “Have they waived as much as they had promised? Out of Rs 8,000 crore, they have made an allocation of only Rs 2,000 crore. The previous BJP government had promised to waive off farm loan from the state co-operative sector up to Rs 50,000.”

