Telangana CM KCR Waives Farms Loans Of Over 9 Lakh Farmers On Independence Day
As part of the celebration of Independence Day, Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao on Tuesday waived farm debts up to Rs 1 lakh across the state.
The state’s Finance department has released Rs 5,809.78 crore for the purpose and KCR said the money will be immediately deposited in banks on behalf of 9,02,843 farmers.
Announcing the waiver, the chief minister said Telangana has “once again proved to be a farmer-friendly state”. “Under Mission Kakatiya, 35,000 abandoned ponds and water bodies have been repaired and a multi-purpose project like Kaleshwaram creates a miracle in the field of irrigation. Making fertilisers available to farmers on time, providing seeds, stringent laws like PD (Preventive Detention) Act to curb the sale of spurious seeds, buying every seed grown by farmers, and providing marketing facilities to them are among a slew of measures taken by the state government to strengthen the farming community,” he said.
According to State Finance Minister T Harish Rao, the BRS government is delivering on its election promise to waive farmers' debts. When taking over the state's government for the second time in a row in 2018, KCR promised to forgive agricultural loans of less than Rs 1 lakh that were taken out up until 11 December, 2018.
According to him, the loan waiver will be executed gradually. The leader of Bharat Rashtra Samithi has already given instructions to staff to create a thorough action plan in this regard. Officials from the departments of agriculture and finance wrote to the banks per his instructions. An official claimed that the entire procedure took a year to complete.
The Covid-19 pandemic and ensuing lockdown made it difficult for the authorities to gather funding for the loan forgiveness programme. For 7 lakh (7,19,488) farmers who had taken out loans of up to Rs 50,000, it has already paid banks Rs 1,943.64 crore. Loan waiver accounts have been updated with this amount.
