Immediately after forming the government in Madhya Pradesh (MP) Kamal Nath is all set to endorse political vendetta. Lately, Leader Of Opposition (LOP) in the Madhya Pradesh assembly, Gopal Bhargava, alleged that the ruling party is not administering funds to various successful schemes which were started successfully under the flagship of Shivraj Singh’s government. These include pivotal schemes such as Kanyadan Yojna, Ladli Yojna and Teerth Darshan.
These schemes cover the people of MP irrespective of their caste, religion and financial background. Under the Mukhyamantri Teerth Darshan Yojna, senior citizens can take religious trip free of cost. The scheme, which originated from MP, was later implemented in other states as well. Similarly, Ladli Yojna scheme was launched to encourage education among girls, balancing gender ratio, to stop female foeticide, discourage child marriage besides changing society’s mindset towards women. Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s flagship scheme, Ladli Laxmi Yojna, that had earned him laurels at the national level is now facing the deficiency of funds.
In his letter, Gopal Bhargava seeks answers from Kamal Nath regarding the negligence of his government towards the beneficiaries of the scheme who were earlier comforted by the schemes. The grants are pending since the new government came to power and some of the schemes were terminated. This stands tall among the cases of political vendetta.
Kamal Nath who earlier requested the Muslim voters of the state to vote for the Congress. His comments were a sheer violation of the model code of conduct as he sought votes on religious ground. PM Modi had lashed out at Kamal Nath during an election speech. So now he is targeting the scheme which was meant for Hindu pilgrimage. This can be another stint of minority appeasement.
After closely monitoring the facts and situation of recent financial crisis, we can draw the statement that the current Kamal Nath government is strapped out of money after implementing the loan waiver scheme haphazardly, which he considers as the milestone of his life however facts do not favour Kamal Nath’s statement.
According to Jagran report, many farmers in the state of MP have complained that instead of the entire loan waiver, they are getting a waiver of just Rs. 25 and Rs. 300. On Wednesday, the state government issued a list of farmers whose debt had been waived off under ‘Jai Kishan’ loan waiver scheme. After the list was out, Prakash, a farmer from Jaitpur, claimed that he got a waiver of Rs. 25 only against a total sum of 2.5 lakh. In a similar manner, another farmer of Sikandarpura, Amit said that he got a waiver of Rs. 300 against a sum of 30 thousand rupees. Similarly, according to the Department of Agriculture, there are around 2,57,600 farmers who are eligible for the loan waiver scheme. The report further suggested that out of these farmers, around 1.5 lakh farmers took loans from cooperative banks while 20,600 farmers took loans from nationalized banks.
The state government under Kamal Nath has implemented the loan waiver scheme but the implementation is dubious and not planned. To understand it further we need to know about the terms and conditions of the loan waiver scheme led to the exclusion of around 1 lakh odd farmers from getting the benefit. The order states that there is an upper ceiling for the outstanding amount to be waived off which is of Rs. 2 lakhs. This means that any farmer having a loan amount of more than 2 lakhs will hardly get any benefit of the loan-waiver. It is also stated that only short-term loans would be waived off despite the fact that most of the farm loans are of either long or medium terms. In a very short while after its implementation. Initially, a large number of farmers were excluded from the scheme, and then dead or non-existent farmers were added in the list and now the debt of Rs 25 and 300 got waived off.
Such huge numbers of mistakes will derail the economy, infrastructure and agricultural development of the state. The exchequer of MP is crumbling and the schemes need funds to sustain which seems to be a distant call for now.