TNN | Nov 14, 2014, 01.11AM IST
HYDERABAD: Even as the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) continues to frown upon welfare schemes such as loan waiver for farmers, the Andhra Pradesh government announced on Thursday that the disbursal of loan waiver would be completed by February 15, 2015.
Till Thursday evening, the TDP government had identified about 53 lakh accounts of the total 81 lakh farmers accounts that would be eligible for the loan waiver across the 13 districts of Andhra Pradesh. The government has fixed Rs 1.5 lakh per farmer family as the ceiling for the loan waiver. Next week, 20 per cent of the amount would be transferred to the accounts of the eligible farmers. The exact date of transfer would be known once chief minister Chandrababu Naidu approves the list after his return from Singapore on Friday.
K Kutumba Rao, vice-chairman of the AP state planning board, who is overseeing the process of the validation of the eligible names, said the government would start distributing the bonds for the remaining amount in the next 10 days. Printing of the bonds will begin next week, he said.
The state government had identified 31 lakh accounts out of the total 81 lakh accounts as eligible for the loan waiver in the first week of November. About 5.82 lakh accounts were found totally ineligible as they had availed multiple loans on the same crop. Another 15,13,271 accounts could not be authenticated due to lack of Aadhaar and ration cards.
While releasing the initial list, the state government had asked farmers to report any grievances to the banks concerned. In the verification process, some more accounts that were earlier held ineligible qualified for the waiver, bringing the total number of eligible accounts to 53 lakh.
The final figure of eligible farmers is expected to go up slightly as some more names may be announced on Friday. Though the deadline ended on Thursday, banks are said to have asked for an extension till Saturday. "As the banks sought two more days to furnish the pending list of accounts, those farmers who have not yet qualified for the loan waiver will have time to produce the Aadhaar number and ration cards for verification of their accounts," Kutumba Rao said, adding that only the names cleared in this phase alone would get the 20 per cent amount next week.
According to Rao, 60 per cent of the eligible accounts fall in the category of small accounts where the loans taken vary from Rs 50,000 to Rs 75,000.