Kumaraswamy promised loan waiver for about 43 lakh farmers, days after taking charge. Until now, loans for 27,000 have been cleared.
Bengaluru: On 13 December, Union Minister Piyush Goyal took to Twitter to taunt Congress President Rahul Gandhi for his championing of farm loan waivers.
“Promise big, deliver small,” Goyal tweeted, claiming it reflected Gandhi’s “world of governance”, before buttressing the claim by citing a media report on the slow progress a farm loan waiver scheme is making in Karnataka, which is ruled by a Congress-Janata Dal (Secular) coalition government.
Promise big, deliver small. Welcome to @RahulGandhi’s world of governance in Karnataka where only 800 farmers have benefitted from the “100% loan waiver” https://t.co/jI9loVvwvW
— Piyush Goyal (@PiyushGoyal) December 13, 2018
With the newly-elected Congress governments in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh waiving farmers loans, critics of the measure have shifted the focus to Karnataka where the scheme has been stuttering.
The scheme was announced by the coalition government soon after it assumed power in May, with the promise to waive loans of up to Rs 2 lakh for about 43 lakh farmers. The entire exercise is expected to cost the exchequer Rs 44,000 crore.
But it has been massively delayed, finally being launched only in the first week of December. Since then, the Karnataka government claims it has cleared the loans of 27,000 farmers, with accounts in co-operative banks, worth Rs 150 crore.
Authorities in Bengaluru say the process was inordinately delayed because the government was setting up a systemic process through a software that has managed to bring both, nationalised and cooperative banks, on the same page.
The software
To ensure that only legitimate farmers are benefiting from the scheme, the Karnataka government has developed software to help farmers link their Aadhaar card, ration card and land record details to check eligibility.
Farmers themselves can upload their documents, explained Munish Moudgil, the commissioner of survey, settlement and land records.
“A pre-filled form is automatically generated by the software and the farmer gets an acknowledgement and can go home,” Moudgil said.
The documents are then vetted and loan details are determined. Eligible farmers are then handed ‘Runa Mukta Patra’ (loan clearance certificate), which, Moudgil said, they can then hand over to the banks to get their loans cleared.
His team had developed the software to ensure, he said, easier disbursal of money with adequate screening to determine a genuine loanee.
“The whole effort is to ensure that the public money is being handled responsibly,” Moudgil said. “We are on track to put the money in the right hands. There is no delay.”
Moudgil further said the government will clear the loans of farmers who have been deemed eligible before 30 November by December this year.
“It has to be made clear that a loan can be waived off only when the eligible farmer’s payment is due. So if a farmer knows he is eligible, we will have to wait till the date the payment defaults to begin the waiver process,” explained the senior government official. “It cannot be cleared before-hand. By January 2019, the loan-clearing process will be smoother and on a regular basis.”
He also disputed the media report that Goyal cited, saying that Cooperation Minister Bandeppa Kashempur was misquoted. “The statement of the government on the floor of the assembly was that Rs 800 crore had been transferred but the newspaper report said that only 800 farmers benefitted. This has caused the confusion,” the official said.
Also read: Indian farmers need a new deal and not just loan waivers
The politics
The slow progress of the process has earned Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy flak from the opposition and farmer leaders. Under fire, the chief minister had assured that the process would be quickened but that hasn’t happened so far.
The opposition BJP has time and again termed Kumaraswamy’s assurances as mere eyewash. The opposition party has decided that during the ongoing winter session of the state legislative assembly, it will demand a deadline and definitive assurance from the government on the completion of the scheme.
The BJP has also targeted the government over the loan waiver certificates and alleges that the government has not got on board nationalised banks.
“They are handing out loan waiver certificates. Tell me which nationalised bank will accept these certificates?” senior BJP leader K.S. Eshwarappa asked the Print. “If they were successful in implementing the loan waiver scheme, we would have appreciated them. But today, all they do is lie to our farmers. If farmers had benefitted, would they have protested?”
Senior Congress leader and Bellary MP, V.S. Ugrappa, said the process is being conducted in a phased manner. Under the previous Siddaramaiah government, the Congress had promised to waive loans worth Rs 8,163 crore and that was fulfilled, said Ugrappa.
“In our current stint, our coalition partner JD(S) announced that it would also waive off loans from nationalised banks. It is in being done in a phased manner and there are no major hiccups.”
He also said that Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh have taken inspiration from Karnataka and Punjab. “We have become a trendsetter of sorts,” he said.
Karnataka state Congress president Dinesh Gundu Rao too batted for the scheme.
“The previous Congress government led By Siddaramaiah had announced a waiver of loans worth Rs 8,163 crore taken from cooperative banks; 22.5 lakh farmers benefitted from it,” Rao said. “Now, another 27,000 have been benefitted in the present government. So how can the Modi government say that the farm loan waiver has not happened in Karnataka.”
Also read: Why 2019 could be first Lok Sabha election to be fought on farmers’ issues