13L Hry farmers owe 10,399cr to banks

Chandigarh: At a time when the opposition is targeting incumbent BJP government in Haryana, it has come out that at least 25% farmers of the state are under debt. In all, Rs 10,399.3 crore is outstanding against 13.1 lakh farmers. Outstanding arrears are calculated on the basis of loans and advances by Haryana State Cooperative (Apex) Bank and subsidiaries, and Haryana State Cooperative Agriculture and Rural Development Bank (HCARDB), which cater to farmers for loans. All this came to light in reply to a question by Congress MLA from Mullana, Varun Chaudhary. He had sought details about outstanding arrears of farmers in Haryana government-run cooperative banks in the year of 2017 and 2022. Banwari Lal, cooperative minister, tabled the details in the ongoing budget session of Haryana assembly. According to reply, on March 31, 2017, an amount of Rs 9652.08 crore was outstanding against 13,58,473 farmers. In March 2022, the amount of outstanding arrears had gone up to Rs 10,399.34 crores, of which Rs 7,315.56 crore was principal amount and Rs 3,083.78 crore was interest calculated by banks against 13,10,362 farmers. “In 2017, the government claimed that it would double the income of farmers by 2022. Hence, I decided to take up the issue to understand if farmers have actually doubled their income. It has now come to fore that expenses have doubled and income remained the same,’’ said Chaudhary. According to reply, arrears have gone up even as the number of farmers under debt has come down. “There are many reasons for the fall in number of farmers in debt, but this is not an outcome of government’s claim of doubling farm income,” he said.