Telangana Govt to Follow PM's Kisan Model for Crop Loan Waiver

Hyderabad: The Telangana government is planning to adopt operational guidelines being implemented by the Centre for the PM Kisan Yojana to determine eligibility for extending the Rs 2-lakh crop loan waiver scheme, official sources said on Wednesday.

According to the PM Kisan norms, former and present MPs or MLAs, income-tax payers, serving or retired government employees and those with a monthly pension of Rs 10,000 or more will not be eligible for the benefit.

Sources added that Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy is likely to convene the state cabinet meeting next week to discuss the issue of adopting the PM Kisan norms for implementing the crop loan waiver scheme in Telangana and fulfil his poll promise of waiving crop loans of farmers in one go before August 15.

As per the PM Kisan guidelines, the family of a small and marginal landholder farmer is defined as “a family comprising a husband, a wife and minor children, who collectively own cultivable land of up to two hectares as per land records of the states concerned.”

The state government plans to extend the crop loan waiver to only one member in the family by adopting the PM Kisan rules, irrespective of how many members from the family availed the crop loan.

Recently, the Chief Minister held a meeting with finance and agriculture department officials to frame the guidelines for implementing the crop loan waiver scheme. He also directed them to study the crop loan waiver schemes implemented in Telangana earlier and also in other states and make suitable recommendations.

Officials have been asked to prepare the list of the farmers who took loans up to Rs 2 lakh.

Revanth Reddy said that the details of the farmers should be collected from the bankers and identify the eligible ones.

He suggested the officials take precautions to avoid any problems regarding the cut-off date for determining eligibility for crop loan waiver. The details of the farmers who have taken crop loans from PACS (Primary Agriculture Cooperative Societies) should be made available before the implementation of the loan waiver scheme. The officials are also advised to prepare the estimation of required funds along with complete details of the farmers to waive the loans up to Rs 2 lakh.