Debt relief likely for flood-hit farmers

Ruchika M Khanna

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, October 15

The state government is mulling deferment of repayment of crop loans availed by farmers in flood-hit villages of Doaba and Malwa region by three years.

According to a proposal, farmers in 14 districts (794 villages) of the state, whose standing crops were damaged in the floods that occurred in August, would be able to repay the crop loans that they took in April this year within the next three years. Farmers were supposed to deposit the entire loan amount with interest to the banks by end of October.

As much as Rs 9,700 crore worth of crop loan was disbursed by cooperative banks in Punjab in April to 7.50 lakh farmers. While marginal farmers (having up to 2.5 acres) got Rs 57,000 per acre as loan, small farmers (having up to 5 acres) got Rs 78,000 per acre as crop loan. Large farmers get up to Rs 27,000 per acre as crop loan. Since a majority of farmers in the flood-ravaged districts are small and marginal farmers, they have suffered huge losses as the floodwaters destroyed their standing crop.

According to estimates prepared by the Revenue Department, which conducted a special girdawari to assess the crop losses, paddy worth Rs 507 crore on 51,364 hectares, maize on 5,553 hectares and sugarcane on 863 hectares, besides fruits and vegetables on 1,304 on 1,306 hectares was damaged in the floods.

Official sources in the government told The Tribune that since the rescheduling of the loan had been approved in principle, farmers would be eligible to avail fresh crop loans. “We have decided to speed up the process of deferment of loan instalments so that farmers can avail fresh loans for the next wheat crop and not look at non-institutional sources of finance,” said a senior officer in the Cooperation Department.

“The process is already on to send the report of special girdawari to the cooperative societies and the district central cooperative banks, who will make a list of total amount whose repayment is to be deferred and loan accounts where the deferment is applicable,” he said.