6.4 lakh families benefit from second phase of loan waiver

Hyderabad: Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy on Tuesday launched the second phase of his government's crop loan waiver scheme with an outlay of over Rs 6,198 crore, which would benefit nearly 6.4 lakh farmer families. This according to the Chief Minister assumes importance as the government was moving in the direction of giving freedom to the farmers from debt up to Rs 2 lakh before August 15, the month when India too attained freedom.

Revanth Reddy said proving the BRS wrong, the government had waived off loans of farmers up to Rs 1 lakh in the first phase and on Tuesday loans up to Rs 1.5 lakh have been waived off. The previous BRS government could not properly fulfill its promise to waive loans worth a total of Rs 25,000 crore during its 10-year rule, he alleged.

Revanth Reddy said Telangana had set a record of waiving Rs 31,000 crore loan. This, he said, was something which no state had implemented since Independence.

Observing that banks resort to one-time settlements by taking haircuts when corporate loans become non-performing assets, the CM said his government is doing "full-time settlement" to safeguard the self-respect of farmers.

He claimed that his government has paid Rs 43,000 crore as interest in six months on the loans taken by the previous BRS regime. He also pointed out that it was the Congress governments at the Centre that implemented path-breaking measures such as the Green Revolution, irrigation projects like Nagarjuna Sagar, nationalisation of banks, Food Security Act, Rs 72,000 farm loan waiver and providing subsidy on seeds and fertilisers.

The Chief Minister also came down heavily on the previous government for mortgaging the state by incurring insurmountable debts. The Congress government was making efforts to bail out the state from debt burden, he said.

He said the opposition parties ridiculed the government and challenged that it would not be able to do so but the government has proved that it was a government that fulfills the promises it had made before the elections unlike its predecessor, he added.