Lending Help To Farmers Alone Won't Improve The Situation

More than loan waivers, the general public of Uttar Pradesh needs better civic amenities and education system.

- Upendrra Rai

Main slogans of the In-come Tax department are: Fund, Principal and Punishment. All the three words have been derived from Chanakya’s Arthshashtra. If you go into the core of them, you will see that governance is the base of any economic activity. The same theoretical premise has been weaved in different words by other scholars who, for example, say politics is the bedrock of economic policy. While conducting his government’s first cabinet meeting after becoming Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Yogi Adityanath announced waiving off farmers’ loan. However, this is not the first time when such announcements have been made. In 2008-09, the UPA government had waived off Rs 60,000 crore-65,000 crore worth of farmers’ loans. The Uttar Pradesh government too had written off Rs 50,000 crore farm loan in 2012. The Telengana government had also written off Rs 17,000 crore worth of farm loan in 2014. Then soon after swearing-in of the Narendra Modi government in 2014, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu had put pressure on the Centre for waiving off loans of Rs one lakh crore. Jayalalithaa too had declared waiving off Rs 5000 crore worth of farmers’ loan in 2016.