For farmers of the Congress-ruled states, even at the cost of the exchequer, Santa Claus has come a bit early this year as the new Governments fulfilled their promise of waiving Rs 62,000 crore worth of farm loan, said The Mint in a opinion piece on Tuesday.
Fiercely attacking the successive Government’s for making farm loan waiver an established practice of sort, the paper was unequivocal that the move cannot fix the cause of agriculture crisis.
Drawing Santa’s analogy with the plight of the farmers, The Mint said like Santa, which only brings “trinkets and treats” and not vaccines and school fees, the loan waiver similarly neither increases farm productivity nor helps the farmer escape poverty.
“The way Santa rewards good kids, political parties are rewarding constituents. And the hardworking elves for this gift are none other than taxpayers”.
The waiver, at all, will provide some immediate relief to the farmers, the paper said.
