HYDERABAD : The Telangana government has issued guidelines for implementing the crop loan waiver scheme. The scheme envisages waiver of crop loans up to Rs 2 lakh taken by farmers between December 12, 2018 and December 9, 2023.
As per the guidelines, released by Agriculture Secretary M Raghunandan Rao on Monday, the scheme was applicable to short-term loans availed by the farmers from the scheduled commercial banks, regional rural banks and district cooperative banks.
Each farmer’s family is eligible for crop loan waiver up to Rs 2 lakh. The government decided to use the Food Security Card (PDS ) database, maintained by the Civil Supplies Department, to determine the eligibility of farmers. This scheme also applies to the farmers who availed loans of more than Rs 2 lakh, with certain conditions.
To decide the eligibility of the farmer’s family, the officials concerned must map the Aadhaar number linked with the bank account, the Aadhaar number available in the Pass Book database and PDS database. The amount will be directly credited to the loan accounts of farmers through DBT. In the case of PACS, the government will release the amount to the DCCB, and from there it will be credited into the PACS account of the farmer.
The Agriculture Commissioner and Director will act as the nodal officer to implement this scheme and the National Informatics Center (NIC), Hyderabad, will serve as the IT partner. The agriculture department and NIC will jointly manage an IT portal for collecting the farmers’ details such as loan account data, and data validation to determine the eligible amount to waive. This portal will be linked to the IFMIS portal, managed by the Finance department, to submit bills.
The crop loan waiver scheme does not apply to SHG, JLG, RMG, or LECS loans. This is also not applicable to the rescheduled loans and loans availed by the companies and firms.
In the guidelines, the agriculture secretary stated that the government is committed to making agriculture profitable and sustainable. He said: “The agriculture sector is a key foundation for Telangana’s financial growth. Agriculture and allied sectors employ 66 percent of the rural population and contribute 15.8 percent to GSDP. In Telangana, there are a large number of small and marginal farmers.” To strengthen the rural economy, develop agriculture and enhance the welfare of the farmers, the government has identified the crop loan waiver as an urgent investment, he said and added that the move will reduce the financial burden on farmers.