Uttar Pradesh to seek farmers’ feedback on Rs 36,000-crore loan waiver

New Delhi: How well did Uttar Pradesh implement the mega Rs 36,000 crore farm loan waiver? The Yogi Adityanath government has started an exercise to assess this by sending its teams to the ground from this month to get feedback from farmers on whether they are satisfied.

The government will conduct a survey till March, with teams of officials visiting each district and asking farmers about the implementation of the loan waiver and the quality of resolution to their complaints regarding the programme.

The feedback will be compiled in a report and involve the officials of the state’s agriculture department, institutional finance department and cooperative department, along with the banks.


The loan waiver has faced severe criticism, with reports of cheques of Rs 1-10 being handed out to certain farmers even as the government had promised to waive loans of up to Rs 1 lakh of all small and marginal farmers.

The waiver exercise is presently in its fourth phase of implementation and many other BJP-ruled states including Rajasthan are studying the UP model before deciding whether to go ahead.

Facing criticism over the meagre amount of loan amounts waived, the state government clarified in September that only 4,814 farmers had got certificates of waiver of Rs 1-100 while nearly 12 lakh farmers had got certificates saying their loans of more than Rs 10,000 had been waived.