Crop Loan Waiver Scheme Runs it into Hiccups

Hyderabad: Farmers who had repaid their crop loan on their own and had closed the account have not got the benefit of crop loan waiver that was announced recently. Besides, farmers whose accounts the banks had frozen are also not getting the waiver. The waiver amount being credited to such accounts is going back to the government treasury as farmers were not operating them.

During the Assembly polls in December 2018, Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao had promised to waive crop loans of to Rs 1 lakh, if BRS was voted to power. However, the government could waive loans up to Rs 35,000 in the last four years.

The State Cabinet on July 31 approved implementation of the pending aspect of the scheme from August 3 to clear crop loans up to Rs  Rs 1 lakh for an overall amount Rs 19,000 crore.

In the last three days, farmers owing up to Rs 43,000 have been covered. However, it came to the notice of the state government that the waiver amount in many cases was coming back as the bank accounts were non-operational. Official sources said that nearly Rs 50 crore came back to the government account.

With the delay in implementation of the crop loan waiver scheme due to fund crunch, the state government in 2019 urged farmers who could afford to repay or at least pay the interest amount to renew their loans. It promised to extend crop loan waiver to all those farmers in a phased manner later.

A significant number of farmers either repaid the entire amount or renewed their loan accounts by paying the interest. About 20 lakh farmers who could do neither were declared as defaulters and their accounts frozen. The banks also closed the loan accounts of farmers who repaid loans completely and did not take borrow again.

Now all these accounts are facing problems during the disbursement of crop loan waiver amount. Farmers are requesting the government to make their accounts operational and credit the amount since they followed the state government's instructions on clearing loans and renewal of loan accounts.