Uttar Pradesh government on Thursday said that the grievances of farmers regarding loan waiver scheme were being looked into.
Agriculture Minister Surya Pratap Shahi said in the Vidhan Sabha on Thursday that complaints were being received from farmers and they were being disposed of. He said that 600 complaints were received in December.
Yogi Adityanath government had in March 2017 announced to waive crop loans of farmers and had made a provision of Rs 36,000 crore in the 2017-18 budget for this.
The issue was raised during Zero Hour by Congress member Ajay Kumar. He reminded the minister that the BJP in its election manifesto in 2017 had promised to provide interest-free loan to farmers. He said the BJP election manifesto for 2017 assembly elections had promised to waive crop loans of up to one lakh rupees with cut out date of March 31, 2016.
“We are not like Punjab where the government announces to waive the loan of farmers to the tune of Rs 10,000 crore but a paltry provision of Rs 1,700 crore is made in the budget,” the minister said.
He said during the Congress rule in UP, the farmers were charged 18 per cent interest and in case of default they were charged compound interest.
The Agriculture Minister charged that the farmers were in distress as during the Congress-led UPA government and the long spells of Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party rule the agriculture sector was ignored. He said the indebtedness of the farmers was the result of the policies of the Congress, SP and BSP.
The minister said the BJP government was committed to redressing the grievances of the farmers in a time-bound manner.
Earlier, during the Question Hour, the Agriculture Minister in reply to a question said the UP government would provide 10,000 solar pumps of different capacities to farmers from December 25, the birth anniversary of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He said the pumps would be given to the farmers on first come first serve basis.
Shahi said the pumps would be given under the Centrally-sponsored scheme in which the share of the Central government was 60 per cent while rest is amount was borne by the state government.
The minister said the interests of the farmers was the top agenda of the state government so subsidy was also given to the beneficiaries under the scheme.
He said the government would give benefit of at least Rs 15,000 to farmers on the purchase of the solar pumps.
Replying to another question, the Agriculture Minister said there was no shortage of fertilisers like NPK, DAP and phosphate in the state.
He said annually 21.69 lakh MT of DAP, NPK and phosphate fertiliser was distributed/sold by the Agriculture department through a network of primary agriculture cooperative societies and seed and fertiliser stores of the department.
He said the government had launched an awareness campaign for the farmers to bring down the use of chemical fertilisers and motivate them to switch over to organic fertiliser.
Shahi said the farmers were being advised to use fertiliser as per the report of the soil health card.
In reply to a question on procurement of agriculture commodities, the minister said that besides wheat and paddy, the government was directly purchasing pulses, oilseeds and maize from farmers. He said during 2017-18 35 lakh MT of pulses was procured from farmers and a payment of Rs 200 crore was made for it.
He said during the current fiscal (2018-19), for the purchase of maize, procurement centres had been opened in districts under Agra and Aligarh division. He said pulses were being purchased from farmers in 18 districts of the state.