Crop Loan Waiver Scheme Is Bogus: KTR

BRS working president K T Rama Rao today alleged that that the loan waiver figures being shown by the State government were bogus, and that CM Revanth Reddy had opened the door to fraud in the name of crop loan waiver.

Speaking to media persons at Telangana Bhavan, he said that the so-called loan waiver was the biggest fraud committed in independent India, and added that the Congress was playing a cruel joke on the farmers of the State.

He claimed that the farm loan waiver was full of arbitrary restrictions, meaningless conditions and cruel cut-offs. He said that the loan waiver that had been done till Thursday was only Rs 17,934 crore, benefiting only 22,37,748 farmers, and that even half of the eligible farmers had not been given the loan waiver benefit.

KTR recalled that Revanth Reddy had said before the election campaign that Rs 40,000 crore would be required for the crop loan waiver of Rs 2 lakh. "Once the elections were over, this number changed. In July, the Telangana CMO had tweeted that the cabinet had decided to waive off loans of Rs 31,000 crore. And the final number now is just Rs. 18,000 crore," KTR said.

"The Congress also said before the elections that everyone who had taken a farm loan was eligible for the scheme. But now it has come up with several restrictions to limit the scheme only to a few farmers," he alleged. "If you look at the loan waiver figures, government employees and the pensioners were cut out of the waiver. Income tax payers were also cut out of it. Those who didn't have ration cards were then cut off. All this was not said before the elections," he said.

He recalled that in the first term of the BRS government 35 lakh farmers had been given loan waiver benefit, amounting to Rs 17,000 crore - in a single term. "When we were in power, we waived off the loans and even implemented the Rythu Bandhu scheme. Rs 72,000 crore had been deposited into the Rythu Bandhu accounts of the farmers by our government. At the same time, nearly Rs 30,000 crore of loans were waived off cumulaitvely," he claimed.