BENGALURU: In a major step towards fulfilling its promise to waive farm loans, the Kumaraswamy government on Thursday approved grants to clear loans of up to Rs 1 lakh availed from co-operative institutions.
The decision would benefit about 20.38 lakh farmers who have availed loans of up to Rs 2 lakh from co-operative societies and District Cooperative Central (DCC) banks with a total financial outlay of Rs 94,448 cr. This includes Rs 4,000cr pending amount to be released to fulfill the farm-loan waiver announced by previous Siddaramaiah government.
The benefit would cover outstanding loans till July 10, 2018, Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy announced after the state cabinet took a decision to this effect.
However the benefit would be implemented taking one family as a unit, which effectively means waiver of up to Rs 1 lakh of loan per family. The farmers who have already repaid their loans would also benefit as the cabinet has also decided to remit the amount to the bank accounts of farmers who have already repaid the loans.
“I had promised to fulfil my promise of waiving farm loans with a limit of upto Rs 2 lakh in 4 phases. Today saw the first phase of it as we have waived farm loans of up to Rs 1 lakh availed through co-operative banks. This would enable the farmers to avail fresh loans,” Kumaraswamy said.
Waiver from next week
Kumaraswamy also announced that the process to waive loans availed through nationalised banks would be initiated next week. “We will take the decision on clearing the farm loans obtained through nationalised banks in our next cabinet meeting. We will release the funds in instalments. The modalities for this would be finalised within next few days,” Kumaraswamy said. He had earlier said that the farm-loan waiver would be fully implemented in four phases over next 4 years, on Thursday he expressed the confidence of accomplishing the challenge by August next year.
THOSE WHO ARE NOT ELIGIBLE
The loan waiver announced by the Chief Minister on Thursday however comes with riders and would not cover the farmers under the categories mentioned below.
Those farmers who are government servants or employed in other sectors with a monthly salary or pension of Rs 20,000 and above
Those farmers who have paid Income Tax in any one of the last 3 years.
The loans availed by pledging the farm produce, loans availed to purchase vehicles, jewellery, for fishing related purpose.