VARANASI: Uttar Pradesh chief minister Aditya Nath Yogi would take the final call on waiving agriculture loan in the first meeting of his cabinet sometime this week. UP agriculture minister Surya Pratap Shahi said a list of 1.5 crore farmers has been finalised and sent to the chief minister.Farm loan waiver was one of the biggest pre-poll promises that the Bharatiya Janata Party had made to the electorate of Uttar Pradesh. In the 'Lok Kalyan Sankalp Patra' (Pledge for People's Welfare), party's election manifesto, the BJP promised to waive all loans of small and marginal farmers. He said that minimum support price for wheat crop had also been fixed as Rs 1,625 per quintal.The agriculture minister said the government was exploring the possibility of using closed and unused cold storages to store wheat. He said all these exercises were being made to fulfill the promise made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to double the income of farmers by 2022.

Source: Times of India April 02, 2017 21:00 UTC