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Loan waiver will not be long drawn out affair: PM
Published on Wed, Mar 05, 2008 at 17:48, Updated on Wed, Mar 05, 2008 at 17:56 in section
Tags: Union Budget 2008, Money , New Delhi
THINKING AHEAD: PM assured the loan waiver scheme would be a 'simple exercise'.
New Delhi: Backing the farm loan waiver Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday clarified that Government will be funding the scheme through tax and non-tax revenues and farmers will see the benefit immediately.
Singh assured the Lok Sabha that the Rs 60,000 crore loan waiver scheme announced in the Budget for farmers would be a ‘simple exercise’, which would be completed by June 2008.
“Farm debt waiver package to be well funded and banks will not be constrained in any manner due to debt waiver. Farmers will see benefit of relief package immediately,” PM said.
However he said his Government had to write off loans worth Rs 60,000 crore to farmers because of the “unpaid distress bill” left behind by the BJP-led NDA regime.
Singh blamed the NDA government for the agrarian crisis in the country, saying: "This distress is a legacy of the NDA rule, a rule during which policies were anti-farmer, anti-agriculture. Low Minimum Support Prices impoverished our farmers. They needed a fresh flow of credit. The tripling of agriculture credit flow by us did not address the problem of past debt."
Singh said the debt relief would remove the "burden of the NDA period from our farmers' shoulders. We are determined to end agricultural distress.”
Prime Minister also said, "We will not stop till we have wiped the tears from the eyes of all farmers."
Meanwhile, in a meeting with the industry leaders at FICCI on Wednesday Finance Minister P Chidambaram asked the corporates to support the Government in curbing inflation by holding their price line.
He also urged the state governments to refund extra tax money to exporters.
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