Economic impact of farm debt waiver scheme on farmers livelihood: A study of Punjab and Uttar Pradesh
- Agricultural Situation in India
- 78(3), Jun, 2021: p.20-35
The present paper evaluates the impact of ‘Farm Debt Waiver Schemes’ announced by the Governments of Punjab and Uttar Pradesh in 2017 on the livelihood of beneficiary farmers in both the states. The data were collected for the pre-debt waiver year period (before redemption) and post-debt waiver period (after redemption) by selecting 180 beneficiary farmers each from the selected states. The results of the study reveal that in Punjab, major change in the occupational status of beneficiaries after debt redemption was observed in case of dairy as secondary occupation, since more farmers started rearing dairy animals by adopting it as an enterprise. On the contrary in Uttar Pradesh, slight change was observed in agricultural labour as secondary occupation adopted by beneficiaries followed by a meagre change in adoption of dairy enterprise. The income of beneficiary farmers both in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh increased after the redemption of debt. Due to loan waiver of institutional liability, sampled farmers in Punjab were able to return higher quantum of non-institutional loans also. Thus, loan waiver scheme in Punjab has resulted in decline of indebtedness on the sampled household farms. In Uttar Pradesh also, there was change in amount borrowed as well as decline in the amount outstanding for the selected beneficiaries which confirms the impact of debt waiver scheme in Uttar Pradesh. – Reproduced