Sedam, Doddaballapur picked for loan waiver scheme

Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy has chosen the Lingayat-dominated Sedam in Kalaburagi district and the Vokkaliga belt of Doddaballapur in Bengaluru Rural district to roll out his ambitious crop loan waiver.

The government, through a team headed by IAS officer Munish Moudgil, has created a software specially to implement the crop loan waiver in a transparent manner. Nationalised banks have shared data on loans borrowed by farmers and this is being fed into and verified through the software, Kumaraswamy said.

“Starting November 5, the crop loan waiver process started as an experiment in Sedam and Doddaballapur taluks and branch-wise information being verified. After November 12, farmers will be required to visit their bank branches with their Aadhaar, ration card and land-related documents. This process will be extended to other taluks thereafter,” Kumaraswamy said in a statement, asking farmers to keep calm.

He announced that a dedicated helpline will be launched soon to address farmers’ queries on loan waiver.

It is estimated that crop loans farmers have borrowed from nationalised banks stand at Rs 34,000 crore. The government has already approved waiving Rs 9,448 crore of crop loans farmers have borrowed from cooperative banks. In all, 44.89 lakh farmers will benefit from the waiver.

“The process of verification has already started in cooperative banks and by the end of November, it will cover 20 lakh farmers spanning 6,000 bank branches,” the chief minister said.

Kumaraswamy directed Belagavi deputy commissioner S B Bommanahalli to hold a meeting of farmers and officials from Axis Bank on November 7. At least five farmers in Belagavi were issued arrest warrants by a Kolkata court for defaulting on Axis Bank loans.

In a statement, Sadashiva Mallya, Regional Branch Banking Head-South, Axis Bank, said, “We are cognisant of the notification issued by the government on the loan waiver scheme and shall be aligned with the directives in this regard. The interests of the farmers are of utmost priority and the bank will work with the government to resolve the matter in the best interests of all parties concerned.”

Deputy Chief Minister G Parameshwara took Bengaluru Urban Zilla Panchayat officials to task for furnishing wrong information on loan waiver. During a review meeting, officials told him that there were 3,530 short-term, eight mid-term and 53 long-term loans farmers had borrowed from cooperative and nationalised banks.

However, a total of 7,531 loans had been waived, officials said. “How can the number of written-off loans be more than the number of loanees? Next time, I will suspend officials who submit wrong information,” Parameshwara thundered.