No loans for Telangana farmers as government waiver yet to come

HYDERABAD: Monsoon rains have failed to bring any cheer to farmers in Telangana as they are finding it tough to get fresh loans as banks are still waiting for state government guidelines on the promised scheme to waive previous loans. Moreover, in many cases, farmers have found that money deposited in their accounts under Rythu Bandhu scheme is being used by banks to service the interest on unpaid outstanding loans.
“Hoping that the government will pay our earlier loan, I approached for kharif loan as rains have begun. But my bank manager said the Rythu Bandhu amount will be used as interest for my outstanding loan if I want a fresh one,” A Srikanth Reddy, a red jowar farmer from Armoor, told TOI. Another farmer from Warangal, L Rajsekhar, added: “I have been waiting for the government to pay my loan so I did not pay the interest for the Rs 70,000 I took last year. Now, the bank wants to use the amount from Rythu Bandhu.”
State government officials said that guidelines would take some more time as they are studying the loan waiver implementation in Maharashtra, MP and Rajasthan. The loan waiver amount is roughly Rs 32,000 crore this time.
A highly-placed official of a nationalised bank said that if farmers have paid interest rates then some banks might issue fresh loans. “But this problem of not getting fresh loan is particularly in rescheduled accounts of farmers,” he said. Rescheduled accounts are of farmers who had not paid their loans when the loan-waiver scheme was implemented last time.
“We have requested the banks not to hold the Rythu Bandhu amounts. Banks should release fresh loan as the government will pay outstanding amounts,” state Rythu Samanvaya Samiti (a government body of farmers) chairman Gutta Sukhendar Reddy said.