Hyderabad:Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy on Wednesday said his government would offer Rythu Runa Mafi (Crop Loan Waiver) in the state under which it will waive crop loans of up to Rs 1 lakh on July 18 as per his government's promise.
Speaking at a meeting of ruling Congress MLAs, MLCs and MPs and other leaders here, he said that as part of the state government's Rs 2 lakh farm loan waiver promise, money would be credited to farmers' accounts in phases, based on the loan amount.
On Thursday, Rs 7,000 crore in total would be credited to the accounts of farmers whose loans of up to Rs one lakh are being waived, the CM said, adding that crop loans of up to Rs 1.5 lakh would be waived by the end of July, and the loan waiver process would be completed in August when loans of up to Rs 2 lakh are dispensed with.
The Congress government's objective is to free every farmer from the burden of loans, Revanth Reddy said. He said his government is "not tricking ryots" in the name of loan waiver "the way the previous BRS government of K Chandrasekhar Rao did".
He explained that the waiver is being done for loans of up to Rs two lakh as a single amount (in contrast to instalments), he said. In no other state in the country has the loan waiver been rolled out in a single phase, with Rs 31,000 crore being allocated for the purpose, he claimed.
Recalling that Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi had promised the Rs two lakh loan waiver at a meeting in Telangana in 2022, Reddy said it is the responsibility of the state's Congress government to fulfil what Gandhi had promised.
He alleged that former CM K Chandrasekhar Rao "could not implement loan waivers of Rs 28,000 crore", despite him being in power for 10 years. Noting that Telangana should stand as a role model for others in the country in agriculture, Reddy, who is also the PCC president, asked the party leaders and activists to explain to the people about the Congress government's good work.
Guidelines for implementation of crop loan waiver
Earlier this month, Telangana government issued a government order (GO) listing out the guidelines for implementation of the crop loan waiver.
As per the GO, the waiver will be limited to two lakh rupees per farmer family and the food security card issued by the Civil Supplies department will be considered as a parameter to define a farmer’s family. The waiver will be applicable to short term crop loans obtained between December 12th, 2018 and December 9th, last year obtained from scheduled commercial banks, rural banks and district cooperative banks.
Under the loan waiver programme, farmers will have to pay the excess loan amount to the banks and the remaining two lakh rupees will be deposited into the farmer’s loan account. The Agriculture Commissioner will be the implementing authority and the National Informatics Centre will be IT partner for the implementation.
The state government will operate an exclusive portal for implementation of the farm loan waiver and all the details, including each farmer’s loan account, data validation, eligibility and others will be made available in the portal. A grievance cell will also be set up to address complaints raised by farmers. (With agency inputs)
