Amid the buzz over a split in the ranks of Lok Sabha MPs of Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray through "Operation Tiger", Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Sunday said the "operation" has been successful. His deputy and Shiv Sena president Eknath Shinde said he never leaves an operation incomplete.
he feels they are prone to misuse by borrowers, including farmers, and suggested a rate ceiling for loans by micro finance lenders.
It would amount to penalising the people, who make an attempt to repay loans.
"We are not in a position to take new responsibilities till the present commitments (Rs 60,000 crore farm loan waiver package) are implemented," Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said replying to supplementaries in the Lok Sabha. "Let us first implement the farm loan waiver scheme presented in the Budget and see the results," Pawar said noting that more than 81 per cent farmers fall in the small and medium categories which were covered under the package.
Farm loan waivers should not be regarded as expenditure but as incentive and investment, argues B S Raghavan, the distinguished civil servant.
Be it loan waiver or DBT transfer, it only helps in creating a "feel good" factor and postpones the problem for some time if structural problems are not handled.
Among the states due for election next year are AP, Haryana and Odisha, which have a fair share of agri credit. If these states individually announced debt relief, the combined waiver would be at least around Rs 600 bn to Rs 700 bn. Clearly, this will be a frightening challenge for Indian banks.
TVK chief Vijay has released his manifesto for the Tamil Nadu Assembly elections, focusing on women's welfare, education, agriculture, and job creation.
The farm loan waiver scheme may not trigger a tendency among farmers to default intentionally, Amarendra Sahoo, chief general manager, rural planning and credit department, Reserve Bank of India, said on Thursday.
Releasing the manifesto at the party office, NCP general secretary and chief spokesperson D P Tripathi said the party's endeavour will be to bring radicalised youth of Kashmir Valley into the mainstream and take stern action against those involved in 'brainwashing' them.
Seeking to allay apprehensions of members on farm loan waiver, Finance Minister P Chidambaram said on Friday 'every' suggestion made on the ambitious scheme was under examination.
Ultimately, it boils down to whether a loan waiver will help without taking action to improve irrigation facilities and to ensure remunerative prices for farmers.
For many years now, the Congress and its allies have not had any noteworthy representation from the area. The loan-waiver package may not improve things in the next general elections in 2009, Business Standard found out in an extensive tour of the area. Most farmers said they did not find it worthwhile to go to a bank for loan because the process was too cumbersome.
Amid intense speculation that some Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray MPs might switch sides, party chief Uddhav Thackeray on Sunday held a meeting of his faction's Lok Sabha MPs, which all nine lawmakers attended either virtually or in person.
Past experience shows loan waivers benefited only 30% of India's farmers; here again, the richer cultivator skimmed the cream, leaving very little for his poorer brethren.
Maharashtra minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule denies allegations of owning hundreds of acres of land and announces a defamation suit. He also addresses concerns about housing irregularities and farm loan waivers.
Uttar Pradesh and Punjab have announced loan waivers for farmers, while Maharashtra has not despite Opposition pressure. Sanjeeb Mukherjee reports.
Ahead of the last Assembly polls, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had promised to implement a farm loan waiver scheme in the state if the party came to power.
Experts believe that waiving off farmers' loans is not the right solution to their problems. If the government puts this money in developing protected agricultural practices, drip irrigation facilities, creating aggregators for the farmers to play in the Futures market and teach them the modern farming methods, they will manage the rest. Farmers usually don't get loans from banks and have to go to moneylenders. They mortgage not just their land, but also homes and equipments.
Farmers of Punjab are not celebrating the farm loan waiver yet, viewing the loan waiver as a 'temporary crisis management measure' by political parties ahead of an impending election. Going by National Sample Survey Organisation's (NSSO) figures, every farmer household in India was having an average outstanding loan of Rs 1,258. In Punjab, it was the highest at Rs 41,576 (December 03 figures). The recovery rate of institutional loan in Punjab was 85%, highest in the country.
Congress chief Rahul Gandhi had announced his party would waive farm loans within 10 of coming to power in the state.
Launching the annual survey of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath said the government has started a 'revolution' in farming sector by waiving farm loans of Rs 60,000 crore. He said improving the agriculture sector is an important challenge for the Asia-Pacific region & deserves a 'serious response'. The report would open up solutions to the socio-economic issues across the region Nath said on the occasion.
Every political party loves to use the bait of loan waiver to woo the electorate. If their hearts bleed for the poor, they can always use the party funds to pay off the lenders, suggests Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Farm loan waiver has been presumed to be inflationary. But the short-term consequences are likely to be quite deflationary.
He said farmers need to get good remunerative price for their produce.
With the Opposition targeting the government on alleged irregularities in the farm loan waiver scheme, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday promised "stringent possible action" against defaulters, if any.
The fifth meeting of Monetary Policy Committee maintained the repo rate, at which it lends to the banks, at 6.25 per cent and the reverse repo, at which it borrows, will be 6 per cent.
'Some farmers know when elections are due.' 'Before that, they take loans.' 'They then ask their farmer unions for loan waivers and the political party who shouts first about a loan waiver (gets the votes).'
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday termed as "hoax" the government's Rs 60,000 crore (Rs 600 billion) farm loan waiver package, saying the move was just to make political capital as in effect it will put the major burden on future governments.
Beyond the macro data, there has been little enquiry into the profile of the indebted farmer households, says Shailesh Dobhal.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan on Tuesday announced a Rs 6,200 crore (Rs 62 billion) farm loan waiver for the 4 million farmers in the state who were not covered by the central governments Rs 71,000 crore (Rs 710 billion) farm loan waiver announced earlier this year.
Addressing the 'parivartan sankalp rally' in Ahmedabad, Gandhi made a host of promises to people of Gujarat, where the assembly polls are due later this year, including creation of 10 lakh new jobs, building 3,000 English medium schools and free education to girls.
With the Lok Sabha elections around the corner, the Maharashtra government is set to announce another farm loan waiver package to cover all those who were excluded by the central government's waiver package.
With the general elections due in 2009, lenders to farmers will get cash compensation of Rs 40,000 crore (Rs 400 billion) -- or almost 70 per cent of the waiver package -- in 14 months from July this year. Farmers whose debt is waived will become eligible for fresh credit after June 30, by which time the relief package will have been completed.
The Congress Legislature Party leader in Maharashtra raises concerns about law and order due to missing girls and the impact of unseasonal rains on farmers, criticising the government's response.
Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Monday said that Appropriate measures were likely to be taken by the Government to relax the two hectare cap to benefit more farmers under the ambitious Rs 60,000 crore (Rs 600 billion) loan waiver scheme. She was addressing a farmers' rally in Osmanabad in the Marathwada region. She said after the Budget many sections felt that benefits should be granted to farmers having larger land holdings in regions like Vidarbha & Marathwada regions.
The Baghel government had earlier said it fulfilled the 2018 promise and waived agriculture loans worth Rs 9,270 crore of 18.82 lakh farmers in the state.
The farm loan waiver announced in the Union Budget is like a key crossroads from which major roads go out in different directions, each signifying opposite journeys and consequences. It is the biggest event of its kind, the fiscal payout of Rs 60,000 crore (Rs 600 billion) being virtually three times larger than the Rs 20,800 crore (Rs 208 billion) recapitalisation process that set Indian public sector banking on its feet.
Making the announcement, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said this was the "biggest" loan waiver scheme in the country.
