Telangana CM Revanth to officials: Waive crop loans by August 15
Hyderabad: Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy directed officials to work out modalities to waive crop loans of farmers of up to Rs 2 lakh each before August 15, which is in keeping with his promise during the Lok Sabha election campaign.
The Chief Minister ordered the officials to prepare plans to implement the crop loan waiver and prepare a list of farmers who had obtained loans up to `2 lakh. He said such details should be collected from bankers and subsequently identify the genuine ones.
The officials were urged to prepare the estimated requirement of funds for the purpose. Reddy called for taking precautions to avoid any problems regarding the cut-off date.
Details of farmers who have taken crop loans from PACS (Primary Agriculture Cooperative Societies) should be made available before the implementation of the loan waiver scheme.
Deputy Chief Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, agriculture minister Tummala Nageswara Rao, Chief Minister’s adviser Vem Narender Reddy, Chief Secretary A. Santhi Kumari and top officials participated in the meeting.
Official sources said that the meeting discussed setting up a special farmers’ welfare and development corporation which would take over all the crop loans and repay banks in instalments over 48 months. This will make farmers debt-free in one go unlike crop loan waiver schemes implemented twice by the BRS government.
The BRS government’s loan waiver also did not serve the purpose as banks had imposed interest burden on farmers due to delay in release of funds by the BRS government for five years in each term.
To avoid this, the Congress government plans to take loans of all farmers in one go through the corporation and repay amounts to banks in instalments.