Final tranche of loan waiver on Aug 15

Hyderabad: The last installment of farm loan waiver up to Rs 2 lakh benefitting around six lakh farmers will be launched on August 15. Notwithstanding the financial challenges, the state government has succeeded in mobilising required funds for the scheme.

The Finance department has borrowed Rs 3,000 crore from the RBI through security bonds and another Rs 4,000 crore was mobilized from different revenue generating sources. The government will spend Rs 7,000 crore on the last installment of the farm loan waiver scheme.

Officials said the government was reviewing the status of up to Rs 2 lakh loans taken by the farmers in the state. The Agriculture department was compiling the data of all farmers who took the maximum loan amount of Rs 2 lakh from the banks.

The government was experiencing some challenges in identifying the real beneficiaries of the farm loan waiver scheme as most of the farmers are yet to submit the required documents. It may be mentioned here that the government had put a cap of Rs 2 lakh on the loans to be cleared.

The identification of the beneficiaries in the last two installments up to Rs 1.50 lakh was an easy affair as the majority of the farmers were qualified as per the guidelines to get the scheme benefit. Now, the farmers are large in number and hence verification of the documents assumes importance to decide their eligibility.

Officials said the number of beneficiaries in the last installment are likely to be less in view of strict implementation of the guidelines. The list of beneficiaries would be finalized by August 14.

The compilation of data is still under progress at the mandal level, sources said, adding that the Agriculture department was expecting that around six lakh farmers will be eligible and the strict scrutiny of the documents will help the government to reduce the financial burden due to the loan waiver scheme.