Yogi's loan waiver scheme offers as little as one rupee to UP farmers

The much hyped loan waiver scheme of Yogi Adityanath government has failed to cheer thousands of farmers in Uttar Pradesh. A large number of farmers have been given relief of amounts as low as one rupee and Rs 10 in the form of loan waiver certificates. 

As per the figures issued by the UP Department of Agriculture, 4,814 farmers have been issued loan waiver certificates of Rs 1-Rs 100, while 6, 895 farmers have been given relief of Rs 100-Rs 500. 

The state government, however, said only the principal loan amount is being shown in the waiver certificate, due to which in some cases, certificates of very low amounts have been given to farmers.

Besides that around 2.6 million farmers could not get benefit of the scheme due to non-linkage of their loan account with Aadhaar cards. It may be noted that the Yogi government in its first cabinet meeting had announced waiver of crop loan of 86 lakh small and marginal farmers for the crop year 2016-17.

According to the state government, 1.19 million farmers have benefitted from the loan waiver scheme till date and an amount of Rs 7, 371 crore has been transferred in the loan account.

Across the state, 5, 553 farmers have been given loan waiver certificates of Rs 500 to Rs 1,000. Till date, the state government has waived loans up to Rs 10, 000 of 11.27 lakh farmers.

The state government had started distributing loan waiver certificates to small and marginal farmers in various districts from September 5 by organising special programmes for it.