RANCHI: Jharkhand government raised the farm loan waiver from Rs 50,000 to Rs 2 lakh a farmer on Thursday and benefitted around 1.77 lakh farmers the same day.
“Farmers are the backbone of the country. They battle financial constraints and weather vagaries to produce food. We have been working to help ‘annadatas’,” chief minister Hemant Soren said. The govt also signed an MoU with NDDB for state-owned Medha Dairy for another five years.
The Soren-led UPA alliance had promised Rs 2L farm loan waiver ahead of the 2019 polls, but the govt implemented a waiver of Rs 50,000.
BJP has termed the enhanced loan waiver as a jumla. “Hemant govt failed to deliver. There is no meaningful progress in the past five years. Now as it nears the end of its term, the govt appears to be making hasty decisions, fearing backlash in the elections,” BJP spokesperson Ajay Sah said.
The CM slammed the Centre, accusing it of “conspiring” against farmers. “They (BJP) don’t have money to double farmers’ income or to increase MSP, but have funds to waive business loans,” he said.