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Journalism of Courage
After the finance minister’s meeting with PSU bank heads, a senior official of his ministry announced that the government would provide the first tranche of Rs 25,000 crore to banks by September-end for the Rs 71,000-crore debt waiver and relief schemes implemented by them for more than 3.5 crore farmers.
However, Chidambaram evaded a direct reply, saying the first tranche will be paid to banks after the first supplementary is passed in Parliament. When asked when that was likely, he quipped: “when the Parliament meets”.
Chidambaram said the total number of complaints received from farmers was at 1.18 lakh, less than the 3.64 crore beneficiaries. He said many of these complaints have been disposed of and all of them would be settled by August 31.
