Undeterred by the lack of positive response from Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to waive crop loans, the Andhra Pradesh government has tied up with different lenders including a couple of banking institutions to borrow Rs.28,000 crore within the next 45 days for meeting the commitment made to farmers.
Disclosing this to The Hindu , official sources said that based on the guidelines of the expert committee report headed by former NABARD Chairman, P. Kotaiah, the government intended to “close the issue” in the next few months by extending loan waiver benefit of up to Rs.1.5 lakh to each family which took agricultural loans including those sanctioned against pledge of gold ornaments. Indicating that the total burden of around Rs.35,000 crore would also be met , the sources said “ We are going ahead with our plans to repay”.
If the amount to be repaid turns out to be less than the estimates after “crunching of numbers and removal of duplicate accounts”, the remainder would be used for developmental activities.
The sources termed as “discriminatory, arbitrary and without any rationale” the decision of RBI to reschedule agricultural loans only in four districts as against the plea to State Government for rescheduling in 575 mandals in the 13 districts.
In the first place, the rescheduling must be based on the mandals affected by floods or drought and not on the basis of districts. For instance, only two mandals were notified by the State Government in Nellore district which was among the four districts named by RBI for rescheduling crop loans of up to Rs.1 lakh and not gold loans. The other three are Srikakulam, Vizianagaram and Krishna districts.
Although the entire districts of East Godavari and Anantapur were notified as floods and drought-affected respectively, they were not included for rescheduling. The sources faulted the RBI for not considering to reschedule crop loans taken by pledging of gold and said nearly 25 per cent of the agricultural loans extended in Andhra Pradesh last year were against the pledging ornaments.
The sources said the State Government now plans to write a “final letter” to RBI. A decision would also be taken next week whether to send a team to meet the RBI Governor.
