Telangana: Farmers hide behind land acquisition, default loans

Hyderabad: The rules of the Land Acquisition Act have not found favour with bankers. The state government is acquiring agricultural land from farmers who have availed of crop loans from the banks. According to the above Act, the government has to pay compensation to the farmers directly. 

After getting the compensation, many farmers are not clearing their outstanding crop loans, which are thus turning into non-performing assets (NPAs) for the banks.  

The State Level Bankers Committee (SLBC) has told the government that banks are finding it very hard to recover such loans from farmers and has requested the state government to direct the departments concerned to release the land compensation amounts through the banks wherever farmers have availed of their crop loans and term loans from the banks. 

Finance department officials say that according to the rules, land compensation must be given to the farmers directly. Almost all farmers have multiple bank accounts. When asked for the account into which the compensation amount should be credited, farmers usually give the bank account from which they did not take any loan. 

Banks say they should be consulted
The State Level Bankers Committee told the government that before paying compensation, the bankers and not the farmers should be consulted about which account the compensation should be credited to. This will enable the banks to deduct the loan and pay the balance to the farmers. An official said the government has the actual figures of the amount of land acquired from farmers. In many cases the land acquired from farmers shows as agricultural lands in the records.