Kumaraswamy waives off Farmer loans worth Rs 34,000 crore

ONI Bureau:  In the first Budget of the newly elected JD (S)-Congress coalition Government for the fiscal 2018-19 , Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy on Thursday announced farm loan waiver worth Rs 34,000 crore, for the benefit of small and marginal farmers, who have been financially hit by four years of drought over the last five years. Kumaraswamy  also decided to limit the loan amount to Rs 2 lakhs.

While presenting the budget in Vidhana Soudha, Kumaraswamy also said to waive all defaulted crop loans of farmers up to 31 Dec 2017 in the first stage. Farmers who repaid the loan within time,as an encouragement to the non defaulting farmers, will credit the repaid loan amount or Rs 25000 whichever is less.

“To facilitate the farmers to avail new loans action will be taken by the govt to issue clearance certificate by waiving the arrears form the defaulting account. For this purpose, Rs 6500 crore is earmarked in 2018-19 budget,” the CM said.