Chief minister Hemant Soren has approved a draft proposal for farm loan waivers to the tune of Rs 2,000 crore in Jharkhand with state the agriculture department setting up a high-level committee to fine-tune rules so that implementation can begin at the earliest.
State agriculture minister Badal Patralekh announced the state government’s decision to the media on Wednesday at his office at Nepal House.
“Funds to the tune of Rs 2,000 crore have been approved for the first phase. Between 2014 and 2019, about 8 lakh farmers have taken loans to the tune of around Rs 7,000 crore. Of this total liability, we will waive Rs 2,000 crore in the first phase this fiscal,” Patralekh said.
“I have received the CM’s final nod on this a couple of days back after which we are setting up a high-powered committee to roll out the scheme,” the minister, a Congressman, said, reiterating the JMM-Congress-RJD coalition government’s commitment towards farmers.
About the quantum of waiver per farmer, he said the high-powered committee would finalise it and make an announcement soon. Departmental sources, however, claimed that the waiver could be in the range of Rs 20,000 to Rs 25,000 for small and medium farmers.
Taking on the NDA government, the minister said that while Modi 2.0 was “tilted towards privatising” everything from farms to mines, the Jharkhand government would do all it could to protect the people. Criticising the new farm laws recently passed by Parliament, the agriculture minister said the “black laws” would break the backbone of the nation’s agriculture sector.
“For us, farmers are our annadata and we shall do all that is required to save them. This farm loan waiver is one of our commitments towards them. We keep our commitment despite the ongoing pandemic and funds shortage,” the minister said, criticising the Centre for not providing fiscal assistance to Jharkhand despite numerous pleas.
“Be it GST, mining dues, among others, we have not been given our share by the Centre despite several requests. The NDA government, however, is pumping money in Bihar only because they are interested in winning polls and not people welfare,” he said.
Notably, chief minister Hemant Soren has also criticised the farm laws. A week back, he hinted that the state may not implement after exploring legal options to try and block them in Jharkhand.
