On Thursday, farmers from a village in Dausa gathered in Jaipur, outside the residence of CM Ashok Gehlot, and protested against the Rajasthan government’s confusing policies that have resulted in banks auctioning the agricultural land of farmers on failure to repay loans.

Demanding a loan waive off, aggrieved farmers outside the residence of CM Ashok Gehlot said that the Congress government had ruined their lives. “What should a farmer do? Does the government want us to die of excessive loans? It had said that it would waive off the loans taken by the farmers, but after 3 years, we are yet to see our loans being waived off”, they said.

Further accusing Rahul Gandhi of making false promises, farmers said that Gandhi had publicly declared that farm loans would be waived off within 10 days. “We can’t see anything in practice. He addressed public rallies declaring that the Congress government will wave off farmer loans. He counted till 10 and said loans will be waived off in 10 days. CM Ashok Gehlot has ruined our lives”, they added.

Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Thursday directed officers to stop auctioning under the Removal of Difficulties Act (RODA) by banks if farmers are unable to pay off their loans. This knee-jerk reaction has come exactly a day after the state government faced severe criticism by the BJP over the auction of land belonging to a farmer, however, the auction was later cancelled by the administration.

The Additional District Magistrate confirming the development said that process of auction of the land of a farmer, who could not repay his loan to a bank has been cancelled. “Instead, a settlement process between the farmer and the bank is being facilitated,” he added.

Yesterday, a deceased farmer’s land in Dausa, Rajasthan was auctioned two and a half months after his death, for non-repayment of the loan amount. The farmer’s family reportedly had asked for a reasonable period to repay the loan of Rs 7 lakh but was denied by the bank. About 15 bigha 2 biswa land of the farmer was auctioned off for Rs 46 lakh in Ramgarh Pachwara village of Dausa.

It is pertinent to note that in 2018, Rahul Gandhi had promised a farm loan waiver within 10 days. He had specifically mentioned that Congress was not making false promises and that it had already implemented the same in Punjab and Karnataka.

On completing 2 years of office, CM Ashok Gehlot also in 2020 had vowed to waive the farm loans taken from nationalized and commercial banks. He had also blamed the commercial banks for not cooperating and had informed that loans availed from scheduled banks were not to be waived off.

References:

opindia.com - OpIndia Staff