Over Rs 49K cr given as debt waiver, relief to farmers

The government today said it gave a debt wavier and relief of over Rs 49,000 crore to nearly 2.75 crore farmers under the Agricultural Debt Waiver and Debt Relief Scheme, 2008.

"As per reports received from the RBI, the scheduled commercial banks, local areas banks and urban cooperative banks have, till date, extended the benefit of debt waiver to 83.40 lakh farmer accounts for an amount of Rs 18,601.13 crore," Minister of State for Finance Namo Narain Meena said in a written reply to Rajya Sabha.

He said in addition, debt relief amounting to Rs 3,308.03 crore have been provided by these financial institutions to another 15.85 lakh farmers.

"Further, the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) has reported that regional rural banks and the rural cooperative credit institutions have disbursed Rs 27,211 crore for the debt waiver and debt relief to 1.75 crore farmer accounts under the scheme so far," Meena said.

Under the Agricultural Debt Waiver and Debt Relief Scheme (ADWDRS), 2008, the debt waiver portion for small and marginal farmers was implemented till June 30, 2008 and has been closed since then.

"The debt relief portion of the scheme for 'other farmers' was extended from time to time and has closed on June 30, 2010," Meena said.

Among the lenders, State Bank of India provided the maximum amount of waiver and relief amounting to Rs 5,307.36 crore.

In reply to another question in the Upper House of Parliament, Meena said an amount of Rs 4,17,326 crore have been sanctioned under the Kisan Credit Card (KCC) scheme to farmers since its inception in 1998.

KCC aims to provide adequate and timely banking support to the farmers for their short-term credit needs for cultivation of crops like purchase of inputs etc.

A total of 78.50 lakh KCCs were issued during the last fiscal, as against 85.92 lakh in 2008-09.

"The banking system has issued 925.17 lakh KCCs cumulatively as on March 31, 2010, since the inception," the minister said.

The government has also constituted a task force for improving the efficiency of the KCC scheme and to eliminate discrepancies like limited awareness about the initiative among farmers and its misuse.

"The government of India has constituted a high level task force to, inter alia, examine and suggest measures for improving the efficiency of KCC scheme, including proposing revised operational guidelines for the distribution and sanction of KCC limit," Meena said.