Farm Loan Waiver: Prime Minister promises, Finance Minister refuses

New Delhi: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday proved Prime Minister Narendra Modi's poll-promise of waiving off farm loans false, by saying that the Centre was not going to do so.

He, however, said that the state governments could waive off farmers' loans on their own.

Clarifying the reason behind the decision, Jaitley said that the Centre can not adopt the selective approach by giving waiver to one state and ignoring the others.

"The loan waiver issue has been raised in many states. The Centre has its own policies and schemes for agriculture sector, under which we provide interest subvention and other supports. We are not stopping them at any cost.

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"If a state has its own resources and want to go ahead in that direction, it will have to find its resources. The situation where the Centre will help one state and not the others will not arise," said the Finance Minister while speaking in the Rajya Sabha.

Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh had also claimed that the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh will waive off loans of small and marginal farmers as promised in party's state election manifesto in the recently concluded assembly polls.

The Congress had also appealed the Centre to waive off the farm loans of the entire country and not only Uttar Pradesh, as done by the Congress government in 2006. It may be mentioned that BJP has clinched clear majority in the recent Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh.