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Loan waiver an eyewash: UNPA

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: The United National Progressive Alliance (UNPA) on Saturday described the loan waiver announced by Finance Minister P. Chidambaram in his budget speech as an eyewash as it would not lift the farmers out of the doldrums permanently.

Briefing newspersons here, UNPA spokesman Amar Singh said that after being preoccupied with the World Bank and the Sensex for four years, the United Progressive Alliance Government had become sensitive to farmers in the last year of its rule. “Better late than never,” he said while pointing out loopholes in the debt waiver/relief announced by Mr. Chidambaram.

Referring to the conditions stipulated for loan waiver, Mr. Singh said the package would only bring temporary relief as nothing had been done to make farming more profitable. “The farmers will take fresh loans and once again slip into indebtedness,” he said. Nothing had been done to address the plight of those farmers who were in the clutches of money-lenders. Further, the UNPA questioned the classification of farmers into small, medium and big on the basis of their land holdings. “Why create a divide within the farming community,” Mr. Singh asked. As to whether the UNPA would keep up its protest in Parliament, he said a decision would be taken by the coalition leaders in due course.

Mr. Singh was peeved at the manner in which the Congress leaders tried to project the UNPA’s efforts to draw attention to the plight of farmers as an attempt to take credit for the relief package that was in the offing. Detailing the rallies and dharnas that the UNPA organised over the past few months on the issue, he said: “It should be clear who has been sincere to the cause of farmers.”

Another poser of the UNPA pertains to the Swaminathan Commission report. “Why is the government not implementing the recommendations of a commission it had set up? Only then will the lot of farmers improve as the report suggests loans at low interest rates for farmers and various measures to make agriculture profitable.”

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