Though the State government, which has announced commencement of farm loan waiver process from December 5, has committed for a four-instalment repayment scheme to banks, it believes that the current growth rate in the economy and inflation adjusted growth in the budget could help it close the scheme with banks by July 2019.
“Factoring that the economy grows at 6% and inflation adjusted to the budget could increase the total budget outlay by close to 14% in 2019–20, we will have enough money allocated for the scheme,” sources said.
While there has been a allocation of ₹6,500 crore this year, another ₹4,500 crore is being added to it to take the allocation past ₹11,000 crore as increased revenue is being anticipated, sources said. With an increased budget outlay next year, ₹24,000 crore would be added to the scheme, which would enable the government to pay the banks completely, sources said.
In spite of a huge amount set aside for farm loan waiver, allocation has not been reduced to any department, sources said. The outlay of the State Budget, presented by Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy in July, was about ₹2.13 lakh crore. Recently, he indicated that the government was working towards paying the banks by July 2019.
According to sources, the surplus revenue has been managed with increased efficiency. “At the end of the financial year, we are likely to add ₹16,000 crore in surplus than estimated. At the current rate, a revenue target of 106% is expected to be achieved.” As against 46% of the estimated revenue collected at the end of September 2017, it was 51% by the end of this September, sources claimed.
The government, sources said, had been on an overdrive in recovery of dues to the Commercial Tax Department under the Value-added Tax regime. “Already, ₹600 crore has been recovered and another ₹1,500 crore recovery is expected by the end of the financial year. Similarly, revenue from excise duty has grown by 6.5% this year,” sources said. “Unfortunately, in this round of waiver, money is not a problem, but bankers are,” sources added.
Govt. to arrive at definition of family to implement scheme
Before the implementation of farm loan-waiver scheme, the government is in the process of weeding out ineligible farmers from the list. One of the concerns of the government is to prevent double benefit to a family and arrive at a definition of a family for the purpose of the scheme implementation.
It is using ration cards and Aaadhar details, among others, to identify people from the same family. Also, a special software will be used to prevent more than one person from a family to get the benefit. Sources said that the software would match names, surnames, and addresses, among other things, to remove duplication. According to an official, a number of bank accounts are not linked with Aadhaar or there have been missing fields, which need to be filled. “We are also seeking ration card details from farmers since ration card lists out the details of the family. Similarly, Aadhaar details are also being sought, all of which will be used in the de-duplication process,” he added.
The official said that sanitisation of data was important as families would have borrowed from multiple financial institutions. “With loan waiver scheme implemented in the cooperative sector, there could be chances of many families being benefited and such families have to be kept out of the scheme to waive loans taken from commercial banks.” Data of beneficiaries of the cooperative sector loan waiver scheme has also been sought, he added.
Audit of accounts
Acknowledging that the audit of individual loan accounts had to be done, sources in the Finance Department said that though a need has been felt, no decision on it has been taken. “Decision on auditing accounts could be taken before the actual implementation starts,” sources said.
(Series concludes)
