The Hindu Business Line : Creation of farmers’ debt relief fund cleared

New Delhi, March 27 The Union Cabinet on Thursday gave its nod for creation of a Farmers’ Debt Relief Fund with an initial corpus of Rs 10,000 crore. This amount would be transferred from the Consolidated Fund of India to Public Accounts during the financial year 2007-08.

An official spokesperson said that approval was also granted for augmentation of the fund for reimbursing the lending institutions the amount of debt waiver /relief granted by them. In 2007-08, Rs 10,000 crore would be infused into the fund, followed by Rs 15,000 crore in 2008-09, Rs 15,000 crore in 2009-10, Rs 12,000 crore in 2010-11 and Rs 8,314 crore in 2011-12.

The debt waiver/relief scheme has been announced in the Budget Speech 2008-09. The implementation of the said scheme will mitigate the hardships being faced by farmers in general and small and marginal farmers in particular. Upon being granted debt waiver or signing an agreement for debt relief under the one-time settlement, the farmer would be entitled to fresh agricultural loans from banks in accordance with normal rules.

The implementation of the debt waiver and debt relief scheme will be completed by June 30.

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