Karnataka waives Rs 34,000 cr farm loans

Bengaluru, July 5 : Karnataka on Thursday waived farm loans totalling Rs 34,000 crore, giving relief to distressed farmers across the state.
“I propose to waive farm loans totalling Rs 34,000 crore, with Rs 2 lakh per farmer family,” Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy announced in the Assembly while presenting his maiden state budget for fiscal 2018-19.
“All crop loans defaulted by farmers to December 31, 2017 are waived in the first stage. Only loans borrowed from district cooperative banks and state cooperatives are waived in the first stage.” The budget has also proposed to allot Rs 6,500 crore to enable farmers avail new loans after they submit a clearance certificate from the department concerned that their loan arrears have been waived.
“All crop loans defaulted up to December 2017 are waived in the first stage. Farmers who repaid loans within the stipulated time will be entitled to fresh credit up to Rs 25,000 or repaid amount, whichever is less,” the Chief Minister said.
The budget, however, proposes to tax people by increasing petrol price by Rs 1.14 per litre and diesel Rs 1.12 per litre.
“I also propose to increase excise duty on Indian made foreign liquor by 4 per cent to raise additional revenue for meeting the budget expenditure,” Kumaraswamy said.
Power tariff will also be increased by 20 paise per unit.
Assuring the legislators and the people that his coalition government would continue the flagship programmes of the previous Congress government, Kumaraswamy told the legislators that the overall size of the state budget would be Rs 2,13,734 crore.