Meeting on debt waiver tomorrow

The finance ministry has called a meeting of the State-Level Bankers Committee (SLBC) in New Delhi on Tuesday, which will be attended by officials from scheduled commercial banks, regional rural banks, cooperatives, Reserve Bank of India, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, the Centre as well as states. The meeting will be presided over by financial services department secretary Arun Ramanathan.

"Detailed information on how to implement the waiver scheme is yet to be made available. The SLBC meeting next week may discuss details of the scheme and how to go about it," said a public sector bank official.

The SLBC is an inter-institutional forum for coordination and joint implementation of development programmes by all the financial institutions operating in a state.

The committee is headed by a public sector bank chairman or executive director in each state.

"All the SLBCs are being roped in to oversee the implementation of the scheme in each state," sources said.

The farm debt waiver and debt relief package will benefit 43 million farmers. As many as 37 million small and marginal farmers will get complete loan waiver amounting Rs 60,416 crore.

The remaining 6 million farmers will get a one-time settlement (OTS) after they pay 75 per cent of the eligible debt to the lenders.

The lenders may get about Rs 11,264 crore. However, the lenders' actual realisation on account of OTS will be subject to farmers clearing their liability.

Lenders, whose bad loans in the farm sector would come down by Rs 92,255 crore due to the scheme, are prepared to implement the scheme by June 30.