Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru (MS)
Bengaluru, Jun 15: The amount of waiver of loans of farmers is getting decreased day by day and has now reached to Rs 16,000 crore.
In the beginning, the government had estimated the amount to be Rs 46,000 crore. Then this was reduced to Rs 18,000 crore and now it has gone still further down.
The reason for the error in the estimation of the loan amount is the wrong calculation of the same by the commercial banks. The banks, which were supposed to give the loan amount that was taken by the farmers for crop cultivation, had added the loans taken by the farmers for buying tractor and other vehicles, building house and sundry purposes. So the amount is reduced now, as per the sources.
Thought the government had fixed the loan waiver limit to Rs two lac, the total loan amount in the name of the farmers was added to the crop loan. Due to this the amount had jumped to Rs 46,000 crore.
The government has also put certain condition for the waiver of farm loans. Income tax payers, government employees, retired pensioners and those who have non-agricultural income are left out of this benefit. This also has considerably reduced the number of beneficiaries of the scheme.
According to the information given by Mounish Mudgil, in-charge of loan waiver scheme, the crop cultivation loan amount is only Rs 16,000 crore, whereas the loans taken by farmers for other purposes in Rs 30,000 crore.
So far, nine lac farmers have provided the details of their Aadhar, ration card and land survey number and action is taken to release Rs 6,000 crore. Till the end of May an amount of Rs 4,830 crore is released. Towards the end of June-July another Rs 2,000 crore will be released. This means that Rs 6,830 crore of cooperative banks is repaid by the government.
"Commercial banks have also decided to make reduction in the NPA loans of farmers. In the meeting of the bank officials that was held on Friday, June 14 it was decided to give 25% rebate on the pending amount. Currently, the loan waiver of more than one lac farmers is ordered. Actually the government had to pay Rs 965 crore towards the loan waiver of these farmers, but now because of the rebate announced by the banks, an order to release Rs 750 crore ores is given. Banks have given a discount of Rs 215 crore," said chief secretary of the government T M Vijayabhaskar.