UPA's farm loan waiver misleading people: Rajnath

Bangalore, May 4: Alleging that the Centre's farm loan waiver scheme was ''insufficient'' and ''ineffective,'' BJP President Rajnath Singh today said the Centre was ''misleading'' the country on the quantum of benefit reaching the farming community through the scheme.

Talking to newspersons here, Mr Singh alleged that more than 200 farmers had committed suicide since the announcement of the loan waiver. Stating that according to RBI's assessment, the actual loan waiver benefit announced by UPA government in its 2008-09 Budget would be about Rs 23,000 crore and not Rs 60,000 crore as claimed by Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram, Mr Singh demanded the latter to explain how he arrived at such an ''inflated'' figure.

Detailing the current year's budget benefits to various sections of society, Mr Singh claimed that while tax waiver benefit for those at Rs 2 lakh income-level was over Rs 6,000 at the minimum, it was over Rs 49,500 to those at Rs 20 lakh and above income-level.

The farm loan waiver benefit was only about Rs 4,500 per family,'' Mr Singh said.

Demanding the Centre to come up with a ten-year-plan on agriculture in the country, Mr Singh said the UPA government should convene a special Parliamentary session to discuss the matter.

Criticising Mr Chidambaram's observation that Buoyant Economic Growth rate and inflation could not go hand-in-hand, he claimed that during NDA's rule the growth rate was kept high while the inflation rate was kept low.

''During the present regime almost all sections of society, felt betrayed or disappointed over the failure in containing the spiralling prices of essential commodities,'' he alleged.

UNI