The opposition Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) has termed the guidelines issued for implementing the ₹2 lakh (per farmer) farm loan waiver by the government as an attempt to deceive and betray the farming community after promising the loan waiver to every eligible farmer.
In a statement issued here on Monday, BRS leader and former minister for agriculture Singireddy Niranjan Reddy recollected how the Congress leaders, including Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy, had promised during the run-up to the Assembly elections to write off outstanding dues of farmers up to ₹2 lakh and asked them to borrow fresh loans in case they had not borrowed till then as the Congress government would write off the loans on the day of assuming office itself.
The guidelines were issued with an objective to limit the benefit of the scheme to only a few farmers by linking it to the landholding farmers families with ration (food security) cards or below poverty line families, he noted adding that many farmers having five acres of landholding and employment with monthly salary of ₹30,000 would come under the purview of income tax.
Mr. Niranjan Reddy demanded that the government should first announce the number of farmers having loan outstanding up to ₹2 lakh and pointed out that no Congress leader had mentioned taking the PM-KISAN data for implementing the loan waiver during the run-up to the elections.
He sought to know as to where was the need to bide time for over seven months in case the Congress was clear about imposing so many restrictions to make farmers eligible to benefit from the ₹2 lakh loan waiver scheme. The Chief Minister himself had announced a few days back that white ration card was the basis for implementing the loan waiver scheme.
Besides, seeking complaints on loan waiver from farmers was nothing but creating a rift among the farming community. Mr. Niranjan Reddy noted that the previous BRS government had written off ₹16,144.1 crore benefiting 35.31 lakh farmers in the first phase and in the second phase, ₹13,000.5 crore was written off to help 22.98 lakh farmers and only ₹6,440 crore more was needed to complete the second phase of loan waiver.
