As the institutional loans advanced to farmers soar to Rs 77,700 crore, higher than the total farm debt in 2018, the futility of the Punjab Governments flagship Farm Loan Waiver Scheme has hit Home hard.
Latest data available from the State Level Bankers Committee shows the total loans advanced to farmers in Punjab stand at Rs 77,753.12 crore, as on June 2021. When the loan waiver scheme was launched in 2018, the total loans advanced to farmers stood at Rs 74,878.46 crore. In the past over three years, since the scheme was announced and implemented, the loan advanced has increased by Rs 2,874.66 crore.
This shows the hike in total advances in the Agriculture-notes-for-state-psc-exams”>Agriculture sector is in spite of the fact that the brought out the much-hyped Farm Loan Waiver Scheme in January 2018, and claims to have waived loans of 5.64 lakh farmers worth Rs 4,624 crore. In addition, the state government has just extended the scheme for farm labourers. The government claims it wants to settle loans worth Rs 592 crore, taken by farm labourers from cooperatives, and so far, Rs 181 crore relief has been given.