After much-hyped crop loan waiver scheme that was announced last year, the Yogi government has now decided to waive of interest of the loan farmers had taken from the Uttar Pradesh Co-operative Rural Development Bank.
The announcement to this regard was made by Co-operative minister Mukul Bihari Verma who said that government has offered one-time settlement plan under which interest of the loan taken by the farmers up to March 31, 2017 would be waived of in phase manner.
“To extend relief to the farmers government has launched one-time loan settlement scheme. 2018. This scheme will benefit 2,63,510 farmers who had pending loan of Rs 2542.43 crore. The principal amount of this loan is Rs 1028.52 crore while the interest is Rs 1503.91 crore. The interest has gone up in proceeding years because the farmers have not cleared the loan in time,” the minister told reporters here on Wednesday.
Explaining the one-time loan settlement plan he said that for loans distributed till March 31, 1997 the complete interest of the loan will be waived of and for the loans taken between April 1, 1997 and March 31, 2007 that interest amount which is more than principal would be waived of. Similarly for loand taken between April 1, 2007 and March 31, 2012 50 per cent of the interest amount will be waived of
As these farmers are unable to pay the loan and they could fell in the trap of local moneylenders, hence the government announced the loan waiver scheme so that the growth rate in the agriculture sector do not have any impact, minister claimed.
Earlier, Yogi Government had waived of farm loan for the small and marginal farmers to the tune of over Rs 36,359 crore that benefited more than 86 lakh small and marginal farmers. “The Government had waived all the outstanding crop loans due to small and marginal farmers as on March 31, 2017 taken till March 31, 2016 up to a maximum limit of Rs 1 lakh per farmer,” Verma said.
In addition, he said the state government had settled dues for all whose accounts have been declared Non Performing Assets (NPA) by the banks under one time settlement scheme. “The total financial burden was Rs 36,359 crore of which Rs 5630 crore was for one time settlement which benefitted 7 lakh farmers,” he said.