Farm loans to be cleared in phased manner: Niranjan Reddy

The Minister said all eligible farmers were covered under the crop loan waiver scheme, 2014 while under the 2018 scheme, farm loans upto Rs.25,000 were waived off by the government.

Hyderabad: Agriculture Minister S Niranjan Reddy on Sunday informed the Assembly that under the crop loan waiver scheme, Rs 16,144.10 crore was waived off for 35,31,913 eligible farmers.

Replying to a question raised by Congress members Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka and D Sridhar Babu during Question Hour, Niranjan Reddy said all eligible farmers were covered under the crop loan waiver scheme, 2014 while under the 2018 scheme, farm loans upto Rs.25,000 were waived off by the government. He said farm loans up to Rs.50,000 were being cleared in a phased manner.

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The Minister said Rs 6,280 crore was allocated for the loan waiver in the budget for 2023-24 fiscal. He said loan amounts between Rs.36,000 and Rs.90,000 would be waived during the forthcoming fiscal.

Congress member Podem Veeraiah said that though Agriculture Department was allocated Rs.26,830 crore in the Budget, a majority of it had gone to Rythu Bandhu and Rythu Bima schemes and only Rs 6,280 crore was allocated for loan waiver, which was not enough to clear the loans. He said the BRS government had promised to waive loan amounts upto Rs.1 lakh, but it was now confining it to Rs 90,000.