HYDERABAD: Finance Department on Thursday issued a Budget Release Order (BRO) of Rs 18,241 crore for crop loan waiver. Out of this, the first tranche amount of Rs 237.85 crore was released on the first day of the crop loan waiver exercise.
The government resumed the exercise, to waive to waive crop loans between Rs 37,000 and Rs 41,000, on Thursday. On the first day, 62,758 farmers benefitted from the exercise. The government requires around Rs 19,000 crore to complete the process.
Lauding Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao’s decision to waive farmers’ loans, Agriculture Minister Singireddy Niranjan Reddy said that the BRS is a farmers’ welfare party.
Thanking the CM for fulfilling his promise of writing off crop loans in phases, Rythu Bandhu State president and MLC Palla Rajeshwar Reddy said that the loans from Rs 36,000 to Rs 1 lakh would be waived by the second week of September. Telangana was the only State which was giving free power to farmers, he said. Meanwhile, BRS working president KT Rama Rao took to Twitter said that BRS means “Bharat Rythu Samithi”. “Jai Jawan-Jai Kisan is not just a slogan for the BRS government. It’s the policy of the BRS,” he said.
"The State revenues dropped due to the problems created by the Centre. Despite this, the State government was writing off the crop loans. The nine-year rule of BRS is a golden era for farmers,” he said.
Meanwhile, Niranjan Reddy had a teleconference with officials and directed them to position the required fertilisers in the Kharif season. “So far crops were raised in 83 lakh acres. In addition to this, horticulture crops were raised in 7.5 lakh acres,” he said.