Maharashtra farm loan waiver: Arun Jaitley insists states writing off agri debt will have to find own funds

New Delhi: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today reiterated that states which want to go in for waiver of farm loans will have to generate funds from their own resources. This is the second time Jaitley is making this comment. Earlier after Uttar Pradesh announced Rs 36,000 crore waiver, the finance minister had made it clear that states wouldn’t get my financial assistance from Centre on this count. The comment now comes in the wake of Maharashtra announcing a waiver of farmer loans to buy peace with agitating farmers. [caption id=“attachment_3544781” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File image of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. AFP[/caption] Though the Maharashtra waiver is at present seen at Rs 30,000 crore, there are chances that the amount will swell. According to media reports, 1.36 crore farmers have about Rs 1.14 lakh crore loans. Jaitley also took stock of the finances of public sector banks as also the resolution of bad loans or NPAs, with heads of the lenders at today’s meeting with heads of public sector banks. Besides NPA resolution and bank finances, the meeting also featured the government’s financial inclusion schemes. RBI, Jaitley said, is in an advanced state of preparing a list of bad loans where resolution is required under the insolvency and bankruptcy rule. Also, the government is actively working on consolidation of state-owned banks. Public sector banks made a “stable operating profit” of Rs 1.5 lakh crore in 2016-17 and had a net profit at Rs 574 crore after making due provisions. The finance minister observed that there are challenges to credit growth and speedy resolution for all pending NPA cases is the need of the hour. (With PTI inputs)