Why are Farmers Outraged With the UP Government's Decision to Waive Farmer Loans?

The farmers were jubilant when the Yogi Adityanath led BJP government in Uttar Pradesh announced its plan to implement the loan waiver scheme. It claimed that nearly 86 lakh farmers of the state would be benefitted from this exercise. According to the scheme, small and medium scale farmers whose loan was less than Rs 1 lakh would be eligible. Like the saying goes, “Devil is in the details”, when the fine print of the scheme was operationalised farmers were in for a shock.

There are reports that state that some bank officials in order to increase the list of beneficiaries of the farm loan waiver scheme included the farmers who had hardly any amount of loan to be repaid. It turns out these were those farmers that kept a very minimal token amount in their loan account so as to avoid the process of making a new account when they would be required to take another loan. Hence, the farmers whose outstanding loans were less than one rupee were also given certificates stating that their loans were waived off.

The government had stated in its release that in the first phase 4,814 farmers had been waived off amounting to less than Rs 100. The farmers who were given certificates of loan wavier with amounts between Rs 100 to Rs 500 were 6,895. The farmers whose loan amounts were less than Rs 10,000 were 65,334.

Now looking at the current scenario, one might laud the BJP government for taking such a bold step. But this completely ignored the plight of the farmers who had to spend money and time on going to the bank, waste one whole day of daily labour, just to collect a certificate that waived their loan of a ridiculously low amount. According to this report, most of the farmers were outraged on the bank officials for putting their names up for the loan waiver

The insensitivity of the ruling classes and the state machinery against the farmers is felt everywhere. About 100 farmers from Tamil Nadu farmers have been protesting in Delhi since March this year but their protests have not been heard till now. They have gone to the extent of eating their own excreta to highlight their issues.

Against the failure of the BJP government at the centre and the Chandra Babu Naidu government’s neglect of Rayalaseema region, farmers from Andhra Pradesh sent Prime Minister Narendra Modi 400 bank cheques of 68 paise each in protest, on his birthday.

The only good news from the farming community is the 13 days strike that was carried successfully in Sikar, Rajasthan. The strike was so huge that it forced the Rajasthan government to agree to the demands of the farmers from the region.