BENGALURU: Officers of finance department have red-flagged Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy plan to restructure farm loan waiver scheme, citing enormous financial implications. The upshot: An upset Chief Minister told these offers to draw up a comprehensive proposal by Wednesday evening so that farmers are benefited in real terms and not through book adjustments.
During a meeting on Tuesday evening, Mr Kumaraswamy proposed that loan waiver scheme ought to be restructured to help all farmers. Citing an earlier episode of loan waiver by Mr Siddaramaiah, Mr Kumaraswamy said cooperatives used it as a tool to recover loans and made book adjustments. Farmers, who are honest, are not benefited by the loan waiver, though government pays them Rs 25000 as incentives.
However, the officials said that such a move would have additional financial implications to the tune of over Rs 11,000 crores over Rs 34,000 crores announced by the Chief Minister in the budget. Under present financial condition, it was impossible to take up additional burden. Mr Kumaraswamy gave statistics to say how the loan waiver scheme might cost less than Rs 34,000 crore.
Besides, the government was paying nationalised banks in four installments, and an additional Rs 11,000 crore would not be huge burden. The argument went bit off track also, with some officials blaming former IAS officer and CM's political advisor Dr Subrahmanya of conniving with nationalised banks. With this move, nationalised banks were able to recover written off loans also, sources privy to meeting said.
