Amid the pressure to stay true to JD(S)’ poll promise, Karnataka chief minister HD Kumaraswamy on Thursday — in his maiden budget — announced farm loan waiver of Rs 34,000 crore, while setting Rs two lakh as the upper limit for each farmer.
“The coalition government has the major responsibility of waiving farm loans and we have begun gathering the required funds for it. We have begun cutting down on unnecessary spending,” The News Minute quoted him as saying.
The chief minister, who also holds the finance portfolio, said that to allow farmers to avail new loans, the government will take action to issue clearance certificate by waiving the arrears from the defaulting account. “For this purpose, Rs 6,500 crore is earmarked in 2018-19 budget,” he said.
In the first phase of the crop loan waiver, all defaulted crop loans up to 31 December, 2017 will be waived. “As an encouragement to the non-defaulting farmers who paid their loan within time, I have decided to credit the repaid loan amount or Rs 25,000, whichever is less,” he was quoted as saying by ANI.
source: Firstpost.com
