Hours before the announcement of state election dates, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister E Palaniswami today announced a gold loan waiver.

The state government announced a waiver on gold loans of up to six sovereigns given by cooperative banks to farmers and the poor.

Earlier today, the Election Commission had said that it is going to announce dates for state assembly elections for Kerala, Assam, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Puducherry. The announcement of election dates will bring a model code of conduct into place.

The gold loan schemes which offered low interest rates were announced as part of Covid relief measures. The interest rate for the gold loan scheme has been fixed at 6 per cent a year.

A similar waiver of up to Rs 12000 crore was announced by the CM earlier also.