Ministers hit out at BRS, BJP criticism on crop loan waiver

Ministers accuse opposition of confusing farmers on crop loan waiver, promise relief soon; highlight errors causing delays.

Ministers N. Uttam Kumar Reddy and J. Krishna Rao have accused the opposition Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of confusing the farming community on the crop loan waiver with a mala fide intention and have made it clear that those who did not get the waiver with different reasons would get it soon.

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Addressing a press conference here on Monday along with legislators T. Jeevan Reddy and A. Srinivas, they said there was no instance anywhere in the country of implementing the crop loan waiver on such a large scale in one go. They ridiculed the BRS criticism of the government on the issue stating that it had not even provided relief to farmers even in case of natural calamities.

Stating that theirs was the first government in the country to implement the crop loan waiver in such a short span, the ministers pointed that though the previous BRS government had implemented loan waiver twice but the amount provided for it was enough only for adjustment of interest amount on the farmers’ loans.

Giving details of farmers not getting the waiver relief so far, Mr. Uttam Kumar Reddy said it did not take place due to errors in Aadhaar numbers pertaining to 1.2 lakh bank accounts, mismatch of Aadhaar and bank passbook in case of 1.61 lakh accounts, 1.5 lakh accounts for mistakes on bankers side, 4.83 lakh accounts due to lack of ration cards and another 8 lakh accounts for higher outstanding amount — more than ₹2 lakh, stating they would get waiver benefit only after repaying amount in excess of the limit per family.

The ministers further stated that the government would open grievance centres in all mandal headquarters to accept complaints and address issues. However, the previous government did not even make an attempt to open such grievance cells to resolve issues of loan waiver for the 2014-18 and 2018-23 phases. They termed BRS working president K.T. Rama Rao’s letter addressed to AICC leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi as a ‘publicity stunt’.

They stated that the Congress government had implemented crop loan waiver despite ₹8 lakh crore debt passed on to it by the previous government and the BJP and BRS were unable to digest the implementation of loan waiver in a short span, setting an example.