RBI recasts select farm loans in Telengana, AP

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has extended the loan recast facility to a limited number of crop loans in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and said the restructuring facility will be available only for crop loans taken during April-October period last year and to a maximum of Rs1 lakh per account, including the interest on loan.

RBI on Friday informed the two state governments that the borrowers in about 100 mandals (local administrative units) across three districts in Telangana and 120 mandals across four districts in Andhra Pradesh will be given a three-year repayment window, including moratorium on loan repayment in the first year.

Welcoming the RBI decision, Telangana state chief secretary Rajiv Sharma said the state government would soon come out with its own loan waiver policy to take care of the rest of the farmers in Telangana.

RBI, he said, confined the loan restructuring facility to 3 out of the 9 districts the state government had proposed.

Of the total 653 mandals in AP, the state government had requested the RBI to recast the crop loans of farmers in about 570 mandals covering all the 13 districts.

While there are 475 mandals in the new state of Telangana its government had sought for the rescheduling of crop loans in about 415 mandals.

However, the loan recast facility is now available to less than a quarter of all those mandals that were declared calamity-hit by the two state governments.

RBI had, earlier, turned down the requests for crop loan restructuring citing the crop-yield data of the so-called distress areas in both the states.

RBI governor Raghuram Rajan had earlier this week said the RBI would provide relief to areas where the crop yields reported less than 50 per cent of the normal levels.