Rahul Gandhi comes out of Parliament on Thursday. Picture by Rajesh Kumar

New Delhi, March 13: Rahul Gandhi today requested the Centre to relax the two-hectare norm for the farm loan waiver, raising Congress members’ hopes that some of the loopholes in the scheme would be plugged.

Speaking in Parliament, Rahul also asked that the cut-off date of March 31 be made flexible, keeping in mind how sowing schedules varied from region to region, so that more farmers received waivers.

The two-hectare ceiling has faced widespread criticism, especially in suicide-zone Vidarbha where thousands of debt-ridden farmers have larger landholdings.

Rahul, participating in the discussion on the Union budget, today sought to address these farmers’ concerns. He said the two-hectare norm fails to take land productivity into account, and excludes deserving farmers in poorly irrigated areas.

“Perhaps we could consider making the land ceiling variable based upon land productivity,” he said.

The Amethi MP cited how, in parts of the country, the cropping cycles were such that the bulk of loans had been taken after the cut-off date of March 31, 2007.

“A single cut-off date unfairly penalises farmers in these regions. It would greatly help if localised cut-off dates were considered so that every deserving farmer benefits from the waiver,” he read out from a written speech as Congress members thumped their desks.

The BJP later claimed that reading out verbatim from prepared texts was against the rules which, it complained, were never applied to Sonia Gandhi or her son.

Parliamentary affairs minister Priya Ranjan Das Munshi denied that the rules said any such thing.

Rahul’s speech has raised Congress leaders’ hopes that the “dream budget” could be made even more appealing. They now expect finance minister P. Chidambaram to respond to at least some of the young MP’s suggestions.

Chidambaram was not in the House but Sonia listened to her son attentively.

Rahul suggested that several programmes would be better implemented if fund transfers were linked to achieving Right to Information and social audit objectives.

“I humbly request the finance minister to consider budgetary provisions and incentives to encourage states to build self-help group networks which comprehensively cover the poor,” he said.

The Congress general secretary also emphasised the importance of panchayati raj institutions. “I urge the finance minister to place them at the centre of programme implementation and create incentives for states to do the same.”

Rahul praised pro-poor schemes like the one under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act.

“Freedom from poverty is not a matter of charity or luck; it is a right,” he said, adding he was proud that the Centre had institutionalised this idea under Manmohan Singh.