Government Delays Crediting Amounts for Farm Loans up to ₹50,000, Farmers Await Relief

The Government, during a meeting of the State Cabinet on August 1, 2021, had committed to provide relief to farmers by waiving farm loans up to ₹50,000, as promised in their election manifesto. According to the Cabinet's decision, the loan waiver process was scheduled to commence on August 15 and continue until the end of the month, benefiting more than 6 lakh farmers.

However, it has come to light that the State Government has not yet fulfilled its obligation, as the amounts have not been credited to farm loan accounts surpassing ₹35,000 per farmer.

According to the State Level Bankers Committee's 36th quarterly meeting minutes, the government has credited ₹798.99 crore to 2.46 lakh farm loan accounts with outstanding amount up to ₹35,000. However, the remaining outstanding amount up to ₹50,000 are still pending and yet to be credited to farmers' accounts.

In the initial stage, the government has successfully disbursed ₹408.38 crore into the loan accounts of 2.96 lakh farmers, who had outstanding amounts of up to ₹25,000. This initiative has proven beneficial to over three lakh farmers. The implementation of the loan waiver scheme of up to ₹50,000 would have provided relief to an additional six lakh farmers.

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According to the minutes, a total of ₹67,684.51 crore remains outstanding in 57.31 lakh accounts for short-term crop loans. Out of this, ₹4,568 crore in 5.58 lakh accounts has been declared as non-performing assets (NPA). As for agriculture term loans, the outstanding amount as of December 31 of the previous year was ₹29,729 crore, with ₹1,205 crores categorized as NPA.

Furthermore, there was an outstanding balance of ₹1,204 crores in agriculture infrastructure loans, out of which ₹65.43 crores was classified as NPA. Additionally, in terms of agriculture ancillary activities, there was an outstanding amount of ₹10,907 crore, with ₹1,253 crores being categorized as NPA.

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The agriculture sector recorded a non-performing asset (NPA) rate of 6.48%, while the outstanding claims of participating banks for vaddileni runalu (interest-free loans)/Pavala Vaddi (3% annual interest) and rythu bandhu cheque printing charges from 2014 to 2018 amounted to a substantial ₹725.18 crore.

-TheHindu 

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