Harish Rao asks officials to speed up crop loan waiver disbursal

Harish Rao directed banks and also government officials to immediately initiate corrective measures to ensure farmers do not suffer unnecessarily

Hyderabad: The merger of national banks, coupled with changes in account numbers and inactive or closed bank accounts, have led to a delay in disbursement of funds released under the crop loan waiver scheme implemented by the Telangana government. Finance Minister T Harish Rao on Monday directed banks and also government officials to immediately initiate corrective measures to ensure farmers do not suffer unnecessarily.

Harish Rao, who chaired a high-level meeting with the representatives of banks on the delay in disbursement of crop loan waiver funds at the Secretariat here, reiterated the State government’s commitment to ensure that the entire loan waiver amount was deposited into the bank account of every farmer. “Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao is the only leader in the country who successfully executed the crop loan waiver twice, making Telangana the sole State to achieve this milestone,” he said.

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The Minister said loans up to Rs.9,654 crore were waived for about 18.79 lakh farmers. Of this, around 17.15 lakh beneficiaries have already received the loan waiver amount in their bank accounts. However, about 1.66 lakh farmers were yet to receive the funds due to technical problems.

To address these issues, the banks have been advised to identify Rythu Bandhu accounts through Aadhaar numbers and disburse the loan waiver funds, benefiting around one lakh of pending beneficiaries. They were also instructed to obtain support from NPCI and collect the bank accounts of about 50,000 farmers. Upon receiving these details from the banks, the Finance department will directly release funds into the bank accounts of these farmers within three days.

Further, the government officials have been directed to conduct field visits and collect details of the remaining 16,000 farmers under the supervision of the District Collectors and District Agriculture Officers. Based on their reports, the crop loan waiver amount will be disbursed.

Harish Rao asked the banks to establish a dedicated grievance cell at the State level to resolve loan waiver-related issues. Accordingly, an officer will be appointed and his contact information will be furnished to the affected farmers to take up their grievances. Farmers were advised to approach the local bank and if the issue is not addressed, they can approach the designated officer at the State level. The Agriculture department also will appoint a nodal officer at the district level in this regard.

The Minister wanted the banks to extend fresh loans to all farmers who have received loan waivers. They were asked to conduct periodic reviews and assess the progress. So far, around 35 per cent of loan waiver beneficiaries have availed fresh crop loans. Harish Rao said a total 18.79 lakh farmers were expected to complete their crop loan renewals. He urged the MLAs and other elected representatives along with the district administration to share details of new crop loans with farmers.

Endowments Minister A Indrakaran Reddy, Chief Secretary A Santhi Kumari, Special Chief Secretary K Ramakrishna Rao and representatives from various banks, attended the meeting.