After Karnataka announced farm loan waiver, Centre approves Rs 795 crore drought relief

The centre's announcement comes days after the Karnataka government announced a partial loan waiver for farmers

Union Minister for Agriculture, Radha Mohan Singh on Thursday said that the Centre had approved drought relief for Karnataka. Rs 795.54 crore aid from National Disaster Response Fund has been approved for Rabi crops for the year 2016-17. The aid, however, comes days after the state government waived off farm loans.

Putting the BJP in a tight spot in Karnataka, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah waived farm loans up to Rs 50,000 from cooperative banks amounting to Rs 8,165 crore. Siddaramaiah also urged the Centre to waive loans from commercial and nationalised banks that are worth more than Rs 42,000 crore. The Karnataka government's loan waiver announcement came a day after Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley reiterated that the Centre neither approved nor had plans of waiving off farm loans.

The announcement of Rs 795 crore drought relief from the Centre comes days after Karnataka government announced its loan waiver scheme and seems like an attempt by the BJP to show that it is doing its part for the welfare of the farmers despite not approving a loan waiver. The relief of Rs 795.54 is higher in comparison to lat year's Rabi crop aid while it is much lesser than what the state government had sought as relief.

In April, earlier this year, the Centre had approved Rs 1,712.10 crore as drought relief to Karnataka.

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