Not everything is about helping farmers as ruling governments waive off this loan or that and sometimes it can be easily misunderstood. But, yes, for political parties these exchequer-breaking populist measures are all about gaining more votes and more power.
Loan waiver spree
On December 17, after the swearing-in ceremony, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, Kamal Nath signed an order for waiving farm loans up to Rs 2 lakh. The order said, “The Madhya Pradesh Government has taken a decision to write off short-term crop loan of eligible farmers up to the limit of Rs 2 lakhs as on March 31, 2018, from nationalised and cooperative banks.”
Given the fact that Madhya Pradesh is largely agrarian (70%) in nature, the burden on the state will be massive. We are yet to know the exact amount that the state is going to lose fulfilling this election promise.
Interestingly, as of now, the Madhya Pradesh government has not finalised the eligibility criteria for the farmers and a 22-member committee has been set up for implementation. This waive off by Kamal Nath was after Congress President Rahul Gandhi had announced during the recent election campaign that they would waive the farm loans within 10 days of coming to power in the state.
The very next day, news started flowing in the media that the Gujarat government has waived off farmers' electricity bills amounting to Rs 625 crores. Another news story that followed immediately was, Assam government’s decision to waive loans amounting to Rs 600 crores with a maximum waiver of Rs 25,000.
Both Gujarat and Assam are BJP-led governments and these decisions seemed to be influenced by the recently concluded assembly elections where they lost power. Next in the line were Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan who took a similar decision as promised in the Congress election manifesto. Rajasthan’s loan waiver would cost Rs 8,000 crores to the state’s exchequer and Chhattisgarh’s would cost Rs 6,100 crores.
Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma explains to Rahul Gandhi over twitter
On 18th December, Congress President Rahul Gandhi took to social media and tweeted, “The Congress party has managed to wake the CM’s of Assam & Gujarat from their deep slumber. PM is still asleep. We will wake him up, too.”
Next day, on 19th December, the finance minister of Assam, Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma, came up with a press conference where he explained the Assam government's decision to help the farmers. He later used Twitter to tell Rahul Gandhi that the Congress president had misunderstood the Assam government's decision on farm loans.
“Rahul Ji, Assam Govt. has not announced any debt waiver scheme. We are offering 25% subsidy on short-term agricultural loan along with full interests subvention. These schemes will continue unlike a one-time loan waiver. Completely opposite to your idea,” tweeted Dr Sarma.
He further slammed the Congress president with another tweet, “And we are announcing these schemes to commemorate 125 years of the agrarian uprising against the British in Pathorughat in 1894 (I announced these in my budget 10 months ago). You have failed to respect our sentiments by linking it to petty politics.”
Not only the finance minister, the chief minister, Sarbananda Sonowal, too, blasted Rahul Gandhi on Twitter. “Mr Gandhi, this attempt to take credit on an issue that is related to the livelihood & development of farmers is quite frivolous. You have no moral right to talk about Assam or its farmers. Everyone knows how your successive Govts in Assam looted the resources meant for farmers,” replied the CM to Gandhi’s tweet.
Gujarat’s Rs 625 crore waiver is about unpaid electricity bills by farmers
Let's talk about the Gujarat government's decision which came immediately after Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath wrote off the loans.
The Vijay Rupani-led BJP government’s story is about waiving off electricity bills and not related to farm loans directly. Gujarat energy minister Saurabh Patel said that the Rs 625 crore waiver would benefit 6.22 lakh people whose electricity connections were cut off due to power theft and non-payment of bills.
“We had snapped electricity connections of over 6.20 lakh people from rural areas for not paying the energy bills in time. The amount of unpaid bills stands at Rs 625 crores. Now, our government has decided to waive this entire bill amount,” explained Patel.
So, it means this is not exactly a farm loan waiver but a step by the Gujarat government to help out the farmers in the state to continue enjoying the use of electricity on farm lands. Albeit, the farmers will have to make a one-time settlement to the tune of Rs 500 to avail the benefits, irrespective of the due amount, including principal and interest.
Harvest season for the Congress
Assam Government’s schemes to help the farmers
According to Dr Himanta Biswa Sarma, these schemes were included in his budget in March 2018, and are not influenced by MP, Chhattisgarh and Gujarat's move. He stated that the scheme is not like the Congress governments which are one-time waivers. When asked about the timing, Dr Sarma said that these things do take some time and there was no connection with national politics.
As per Dr Sarma, the Assam government will spend under three schemes and the idea is to help improve the interaction of the farmers with the banks. “The schemes are to help the farmers repay the debts and continue using the banks for further advancement.”
The three schemes are:
1. Assam Farmers’ Credit Subsidy Scheme
2. Assam Farmers' Interest Relief Scheme
3. Assam Farmers' Incentives Scheme
All the three schemes will be launched in the second week of January.