HYDERABAD: The Budget session on Sunday witnessed the State government swiftly changing its plans on crop loan waiver due to the economic slowdown and lack of resources.
As per 2019-20 Budget estimates, the government had allocated Rs 6,000 crore for crop loan waiver. Initially, the government planned to waive around Rs 25,000 crore crop loans in four yearly-instalments.
However, the State did not receive expected money from the Central poll. Thus, the Telangana government, during the last month of 2019-20 fiscal year, changed its strategy and instead of spending Rs 6,000 crore, as per Budget for 2019-20, it will spend Rs 1,198 crore to help the farmers who have an outstanding loans up to Rs 25,000 each.
Finance Minister T Harish Rao announced this in his Budget speech on Sunday. "There are as many as 5,83,916 farmers in this category. The government has decided to waive their loans completely in one go," Harish said.
However, the waiver of loans above Rs 25,000 and up to Rs 1 lakh per farmer requires a huge amount of Rs 24,738 crore and this will be taken up in four instalments.