Loan waiver cost may be down to ₹20,000 cr.

Government’s earlier estimate was pegged at ₹26,000 crore

The outgo from the State’s exchequer towards farm loan waiver could be much lower than anticipated, as back end documentation is now proving. It is expected to come down from the estimate of around ₹26,000 crore to about ₹20,000 crore.

At present, the government is expecting to pay ₹8,000 crore to the cooperative sector and an estimated ₹18,000 crore to the commercial bank sector, and it is the latter that is likely to come down.

“The estimated ₹18,000 crore is likely to come down as we start undertaking the de-duplication work to arrive at the definition of family to restrict the benefits of the loan waiver scheme to one account per family. Further, de-duplication work will also be taken to prevent those beneficiaries of farm loan waiver in the cooperative sector from availing the same benefit in the commercial bank sector,” sources explained.

Once the de-duplication process is completed, the State government expects the loan waiver size in the commercial bank sector to settle at around ₹12,000 crore, which adds up to an overall crop loan waiver of around ₹20,000 crore. Incidentally, the State government has allocated ₹6,500 crore towards farm loan waiver this financial year.

Total loans

In all, the government has identified 21.8 lakh loan accounts from 34 banks that total to about ₹35,000 crore, and has also announced a list of criteria for eligiblity for the loan waiver scheme.

The government is giving ₹2 lakh to loans that have been defaulted and ₹25,000 as incentive to those who have repaid the loan. “There are loan accounts that are less than ₹50,000 also. De-duplication work is going on and it will come into play before the payment is made,” sources said.

According to sources, all genuine farmers, who submit ration card no., Aadhaar no. and land survey no., and qualifies to be eligible for the waiver, will be covered by the government scheme.

Meanwhile, about 70,000 farmers in the cooperative sector have benefited from the scheme, with the total waiver being around ₹348 crore.

“The waiver is being released in the month in which the loan becomes due. Payments are happening on a weekly basis,” sources said, adding that the full list of eligible farmers who have submitted the three essential documents, will be ready in January 2019.