With the financial year coming close to an end in a fortnight, the farmers are eagerly waiting for the State government to release funds for phase-II of debt redemption scheme. The bankers, however, said that there was no information on release of funds by the government.
In the first phase of the scheme, the government waived loans up to Rs 50,000 of each farmer. However, more than 43 lakh farmers across the State have missed the bus as they could not furnish details such as Aadhaar card number, ration card and pattadar passbook. The government promised that loans of all eligible farmers would be waived of in second phase.
The banks had already completed the uploading information of all farmers, who did not get loan waiver in phase-I, by February 23 as directed by the government. “We haven’t heard anything from the government on phase-II so far. It may not take off before financial year end if the previous experience were to be considered,” said a banker on condition of anonymity.
AP Rythu Sangham State joint secretary J. Prabhakar, however, said the list of beneficiaries in phase-I and phase-II were not made public. More so, the government withheld the loan waiver scheme for farmers who availed loans from cooperative banks stating that it came across instances where non-farm loans also were waived off by bankers, he said.
The bankers also agree with this argument. It was next to impossible to get data of entire district or State. For instance, there are 48 banks and 685 branches that disbursed loans in Krishna district alone. One needs to collect data from each branch though consolidate data was available with the NIC. “The government is purposefully maintaining secrecy. Even the banks are kept in dark,” said a senior bank official.
