Hyderabad: Deputy Chief Minister Bhatti Vikramarka Mallu here on Thursday instructed that the funds released for farmers’ loan waiver should be utilized exclusively for that purpose only and should not be adjusted for any other loans. Inconvenience should not be caused to farmers at any cost, he said.
Speaking at the meeting with the bankers on farmers’ loan waiver, Bhatti said that Rs 31,000 crore would be released before the end of August towards loan waiver for farmers. He said over Rs 6,000 crore would be released today under the loan waiver scheme for over 11 lakh farmers.
The second installment would also be released in July itself to cover farmers with loans upto Rs 1.5 lakh. Later loans of farmers upto Rs 2 lakhs would be released.
For those farmers with over Rs 2 lakh loan, bankers should talk to those farmers and recover the excess of amount over Rs 2 lakh and utilize the Rs 2 lakh to be released by the government to ensure no farmer owed loan to the bank, Bhatti said.
Describing loan waiver for farmers as a historical decision in the country itself, Bhatti said that no State government waived farmers loans to the tune of Rs 31,000 crore loans. Bhatti recalled that before coming to power, Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy as the PCC President and himself as the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader went into election campaign after signing on the loan waiver guarantee.
“We are now bound by our word and are implementing loan waiver scheme for farmers in letter and spirit”, he said. The State government would deposit Rs 31,000 crore in 40 lakh bank accounts under the loan waiver, he disclosed.
This is the first time in Indian banking history that such a huge amount would be recovered at one go, he pointed out. Even in the corporate banking sector, never such a huge amount was recovered ever by banks at one go, he said.
Noting that the State government’s decision is a huge incentive for the banking sector, he said just like farmers were celebrating today, even bankers should celebrate the occasion.
Disclosing that the State government will be introducing more programmes for the development of the agriculture sector in future, Bhatti who is also the Finance Minister said agriculture sector contributed 16.5 percent to the State GS GDP and over 45 per cent of people were dependent on agriculture sector.
Bhatti directed the bankers that after crediting the funds sanctioned under the Farmers’ loan waiver, they should immediately sanction loans to farmers for their future requirements. He said no apathy should be displayed in sanctioning loans to farmers and the Lead Bank should play the role of big brother, he suggested.
He wanted the bankers to organise celebrations at the bank premises in the wake of waiver of farmers’ loans and provide extensive publicity to the programme.
