Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati has asked the central government to waive repayment of all loans given to farmers in the Budelkhand region, estimated at Rs 4,500 crore.
In her letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, she said loans distributed till March 31 this year should be included in the special waiver. The state has estimated it would benefit about 1.5 million farmers in the impoverished region.
She noted Bundelkhand had difficult geographical conditions and its economy was mainly based on agriculture, owing to which the farmers were facing hardship. She blamed earlier governments for the region’s neglect.
She also referred to her letter to the PM on January 13, 2008, in which she had described the drought conditions in Bundelkhand and demanded a Rs 2,797-crore loan relief package. This letter had alsmentioned an earlier one on December 6, 2007, for Rs 7,016 crore of financial assistance for drought affected areas. An earlier demand had also been made for a Rs 20,000 crore package for filling “critical gaps”.
In her latest letter, the CM said directives had already been issued that farmers should not be harassed for loans up to Rs 2 lakh. She said the state had provided crop loans and agriculture inputs to Bundelkhand farmers from its limited resources but despite a 16.5 per cent rise in agricultural production in 2010-11, their condition had not improved.
