A meeting of State government with 42 bankers was informed on Friday that Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao would formally announce crop loan waiver in the range of ₹ 25,000 to ₹50,000 on August 15.
In the first phase, the government had waived all loans borrowed by farmers up to ₹ 25,000. A Cabinet meeting recently decided to waive loans above ₹ 25,000 and below ₹ 50,000 this year. Friday’s meeting chaired by Finance Minister T. Harish Rao was a sequel to this decision.
Addressing the meeting, Mr. Harish Rao asked the bankers to ensure that the loan accounts of farmers showed zero balance after the government released the money from August 16. The farmers should be eligible for fresh loans after that. The money released by government should not be adjusted against any other debit balances of farmers.
He said the government would release ₹ 2,006 crore to six lakh farmers in this phase of loan waiver. The bankers and government officials should work in coordination to credit the amount to eligible farmers. Bulk SMS messages in the name of the Chief Minister should go to farmers’ phones after the money was credited to accounts. The messages should also announce that the farmers were eligible for fresh loans hereafter.
Parallelly, the banks should also also send separate SMS messages to farmers that the outstandings from them were received.
Agriculture Minister S. Niranjan Reddy asked the banks to extend loan waiver to farmers unconditionally.
The meeting was attended by Principal Finance Secretary K. Ramakrishna Rao, Agriculture Secretary Raghunandan Rao and other senior finance and agriculture officers.
