Liberalise farmers loan waiver scheme : Raje

Jaipur, Mar 17 (UNI) Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje today urged the Centre to liberalise its farmers' loan waiver scheme to provide relief of at least Rs 10,000 to every farmer with land holding up to 10 hectares.

Replying to debate on Rajasthan Appropriation Bill 2008 and Rajasthan Finance Bill 2008 in the state Assembly here this evening, Ms Raje expressed her dissatisfaction over Rs 60,000 crore farmers loan waiver scheme and said the announcement was an illusion and it would not provide relief to needy farmers.

She said her government had worked on possible fallouts of the loan waiver announcement and the exercise had revealed that only around seven per cent of around 32 lakh loanee farmers in Rajasthan would get some relief due to the waiver scheme.

She said Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram's announcement in this regard was having so many riders and conditions that it would not provide any relief to the needy farmers.

Contrary to this, measures were being taken by her government in the budget were bound to provide at least some relief to each of 25 lakh farmers.

The Chief Minister said the Centre should remove the riders of five hectares land holdings and should not include only defaulter loanees in the scheme.

Instead, the government should raise the land holding limit up to 10 hectares and should provide relief of at least Rs10,000 to every farmer with that much land holding.

She also sought cooperation from the Opposition Congress for adopting an unanimous resolution in the House for forwarding to the Centre for making the scheme liberal.

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