Most farmers in Telangana couldn’t get the one lakh rupees crop loan waiver because of negligence from the Agricultural department and lack of coordination between the banking and agriculture departments. According to bank rules, crop loans have a term limit of 5 years. After that, farmers can reschedule the loan for another five years, pay off the debt, close the account, and open a new one.
Many farmers have closed their old accounts and received their loan through new accounts. However, even though the government instructed banks to enter these details in the crop loan waiver website, no action has been taken. As a result, the loan waiver money deposited by the government in those accounts has gone back to the treasury.
Farmers are worried because when they approach banks for information about the loan waiver, they are told that there is no such program. It is unclear if and when the withdrawn loan waiver funds will be available again, especially with the possibility of upcoming assembly elections.
The state government decided to waive off crop loans up to one lakh rupees. The Agricultural development department collected details from banks using software. The cut-off date for eligible farmers was April 1, 2014, to December 11, 2018. The loan waiver process started for 42.56 lakhs people, with 1943.64 crores paid to banks for farmers with loans below 37 thousand rupees, 237.85 crores released for farmers with loans within the limit of 41 thousand rupees, and 5089.78 crores credited to the accounts of farmers with loans up to 99999 rupees as an Independence Day gift. So far, the government has deposited about 8 thousand crore rupees in banks for about 17 lakh farmers.
For farmers who have closed their old accounts and opened new ones, there is a lack of support from the agriculture department. According to banking rules, when a farmer’s crop loan account is closed, banks and agriculture department officials should register a new account. However, there is no edit option available from the agriculture department on the Panta Runa Mafi website. If farmers try to update their crop loan accounts, they are directed to contact the agriculture development officials who claim to have no information. Banking officials say they cannot update the loan waiver accounts without any edit option from the agriculture department.
Previously, when loans were waived, even if the loan account and savings accounts of eligible farmers were not valid, the money would be deposited in the parking account of the banks and paid to farmers through other means. However, in this case, the cash that was not deposited in loan waiver accounts has gone back to the treasuries instead of parking accounts. Officials state that if the government sends that money again, there is no possibility of it coming. To avoid this problem, updating accounts two days before and taking the necessary information would have been helpful.
