Loan waiver Congress’ priority; Kamal Nath to discuss matter immediately after taking over

New Delhi, Dec 17: Loan waiver has been one of the most important commitments of the Congress in the recently held elections. So the Congress has started preparation to help around 35 lakh farmers of the state. The state will get Kamal Nath as the new chief minister of the state. He will immediately discuss the matter after taking oath of the office.

Sources said that despite Sunday being a holiday, chief secretary of Madhya Pradesh B P Singh took the meeting of officials of agriculture, animal husbandry and some other related departments to get to know about the matter that how it could be implemented.

In this meeting officials of the state government gave presentations on different formulas for loan waiver of farmers. The government will have to eek out around Rs 20,000 crore for farmers' debt waiver.

The meeting in the ministry lasted for around one and half hour that was started at 11 AM. Chief secretary agriculture Rajesh Rajora presented the model of Punjab, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashra. Chief secretary asked officials about preparations for loan waiver and data about the money required to be spent on this dole out.

Officials said that around Rs 20,000 crore will have to spend on this out of which Rs 14,500 are Non Performing Assets (NPAs). They said that as per 2008 formula the loan is waived up to the cut off date. For the farmers the due date for pay loans in June 2019.

It has been said in the meeting that a portal will be launched for loan waiver scheme where every information will be kept. After taking over the oath of the office, Kamal Nath will take the meeting of official of the state government on loan waiver in annexe. The chief secretary had the meeting for preparation of this meeting only.

In the Congress' Vachan Patra (manifesto) also has promise of opening Gaushala at panchayat level. So the animal husbandry secretary K C Gupta told the road map for this. He told the meeting about the number of livestock, expenditure on opening Gaushala and also emphasized providing employment to youths out of this entire exercise.