Three days after announcing waiver of farm loans of up to ₹50,000 taken from State-run cooperative institutions, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Saturday issued a Government Order to this effect.
This makes Karnataka the first State to issue an official order on loan waiver among the four States — Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Maharashtra and Karnataka — which announced the scheme recently.
According to the Government Order, the loan waiver will be applicable to those farmers who have taken loans from Primary Land Development (PLD) Banks, Primary Cooperative Agriculture and Rural Development (PICARD) Banks, District Cooperative Central (DCC) Banks, and Large Sized Adivasi Multipurpose Cooperative Societies (LAMPS). The waiver is subject to a total of 14 conditions.
The waiver, which will be applicable to one loan per farmer in one bank, will not include middle-term and long-term loans taken for non-agricultural purposes and under other schemes, the Government Order stated. In case the farmer is dead, his kith and kin can avail themselves of the benefit. The State government will discuss the modalities of implementing the loan waiver scheme with the Finance Department and issue a separate order shortly, the GO stated.
