Former Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy on Sunday lashed out at Agriculture Minister B.C. Patil over his remarks on farm loan waiver.
Responding to Mr. Patil’s statement that the former Chief Minister had merely made an announcement on loan waiver and not finalised the modalities for the exercise, Mr. Kumaraswamy said the Agriculture Minister was ignorant about the issue and was making false statements in public. “I did not merely make the announcement on loan waiver when I was in power. I had distributed ₹25,000 crore to farmers for the purpose of loan waiver before demitting the office of Chief Minister. I released the amount when I was in power. Out of that amount, the present government is yet to distribute ₹800 crore,” Mr. Kumaraswamy told reporters in Mysuru.
The former CM also said that his government had asked farmers to furnish only simple documents for claiming loan waiver. “They needed to produce only Aadhaar, ration card and bank account details, as per the guidelines. If the documents were not in order, it was the department’s responsibility to set it right,” he said. He urged the government to ensure that the affected farmers benefit from the loan waiver scheme so that middlemen do not pocket the funds set aside to provide relief to farmers.
