The bank loan waiver for small farmers is unlikely to give any significant political mileage to the United Progressive Alliance in western Uttar Pradesh, home to hardy farmers and their leaders like Ajit Singh and Mahendra Singh Tikait.
For many years now, the Congress and its allies have not had any noteworthy representation from the area. The loan-waiver package may not improve things in the next general elections in 2009,
Business Standard found out in an extensive tour of the area.
Most farmers said they did not find it worthwhile to go to a bank for loan because the process was too cumbersome. "Getting a loan from any bank is tedious. They ask for innumerable documents and make us run for months before sanctioning a loan," said Gyan Singh, a farmer.
Consider this: Only 16 per cent of the 42,000 farmers associated through loans with the 79 branches of the Punjab National Bank in the Meerut circle will benefit from the loan-waiver package. Of the Rs 268 crore (Rs 2.68 billion) outstanding dues of farmers to the bank in the circle, only Rs 28 crore (Rs 280 million) will qualify for loan waiver and relief.
The upshot is, there is enough prosperity in the area for the farmers to queue up in front of banks for loans. Farmers in the area cultivate sugarcane in large numbers to feed the sugar, gur and khandsari mills that dot the landscape. The Uttar Pradesh government has always kept the purchase price of sugarcane high to be in the good books of this politically active group of farmers.
In spite of the current payment problems the farmers face from the mills, there are visible signs of prosperity all over. Most rural houses are pucca structures with a vehicle or two in the courtyard. Farmers send their children to far-off places like Ghaziabad and Noida to study in expensive public schools.
A PNB officer, who works