Bengaluru: Taking on Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his comment that his government had failed to waive farm loans as promised and issued notices to farmers instead, Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy hit back on Tuesday, charging that it was the Centre that had issued notices to farmers, while Karnataka had waived their loans.
Speaking to reporters, Mr Kumarswamy deplored that the state BJP too was making unfounded allegations.
"We have already compiled 92 per cent of the data on the loans taken by farmers from nationalised, private and cooperative banks and chosen Sedam and Doddaballapur taluks for a pilot project for issuing debt- free certificates. So far we have cleared farm loans to the tune of Rs 8,000 crore issued by the cooperative banks to honour the commitment made by the Siddaramaiah government," he said, adding that the state government had also collected details of over 30.8 lakh farmers, who had taken loans from branches of around 33 banks. "The overdue loans run into around Rs 6500 crore and we are preparing to clear them," he assured.
Referring to the Kodagu disaster, the CM said reconstruction of houses for victims will begin on December 8. "We have identified over 120 acres for construction of a 1,000 houses at a cost of Rs 10 lakh each," he added.
