Work on Rs 36,000 cr loan waiver in UP begins, says Yogi Adityanath

The Uttar Pradesh government has last week started the process to waive loans to the tune of Rs 36,000 crore of 86 lakh farmers of the state, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said here today.

Distributing cards to beneficiaries of the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna (PMAY) and free power connection scheme, he said around 60 lakh poor families in the state would get the electricity connection free of cost.

He accused the previous Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) governments of failing to provide houses to people, saying "Our aim is to provide houses to 14 lakh people by 2019, and nine lakh houses would be given to poor people in rural areas.

Attacking the previous governments, he said "the people in Uttar Pradesh were honest" but they are forced to resort to power theft as they had to spend a huge amount of money for getting a new electricity connection.

"But the BJP government had waived the charges, levied for getting a new electricity connection, which is being provided free of cost to this government so that people could pay their power bills honestly," Adityanath said.

The UP chief minister also said that land mafia and mining mafia, which has been active in the state, would not be allowed to run their business and dealt with strictly.

Taking a dig at those demanding a ban on playing of high-decibel music during the annual kanwad yatra, he said everybody should celebrate each festival but it should not cause problem to others.