Some 42 lakh farmers are eligible for the waiver scheme in the state.

HYDERABAD: Telangana is set to spend Rs 32,000 crore on farm loan waiver this season — the highest-ever amount to be incurred on this count by any state in the country. Though Maharashtra, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh have given much higher estimated costs on loan waiver, their actual allocation has always been less, whereas Telangana’s estimated and actual costs have remained the same through successive years.

A recent report of the state-level bankers’ committee (SLBC) put Telangana’s estimated cost at Rs 32,000 crore, far above the 2014-2015 spending of Rs 17,000 crore on loan waivers.

Senior officials said the amount had shot up because more number of farmers had availed themselves of loans than last time as all political parties had announced loan-waiver schemes in their manifestos during the December 2018 Assembly elections in Telangana. “It’s a huge jump considering the last season spending of Rs 17,000 crore,” a senior official told TOI.

After SLBC gave the estimated cost (with the cut-off date for eligibility being December 11, 2018), officials are now mulling over implementing the waiver for small and marginal farmers who took loans of less than Rs 50,000 in one stroke. According to a senior official, 42 lakh farmers are eligible for the waiver scheme in the state.

Telangana and neighbouring Andhra Pradesh have been implementing the scheme since 2014-15. AP’s annual burden is Rs 16,975 crore. “Telangana is the only state which has implemented the loan-waiver scheme successfully in the last four years,” an agriculture department official said.

Maharashtra, which rolled out the scheme in 2017-18, put the estimated cost at Rs 34,000 crore but spent only Rs 25,000 crore till last year. Uttar Pradesh’s projected cost was Rs 34,000 crore but the state incurred only Rs 24,000 crore in the last season. “However, Telangana’s projected estimates and incurred costs have been the same in the last three years at Rs 16,000 crore each,” a senior government official claimed.

The difference in the cost estimates and amount spent in Karnataka was stark. While the cost was put at Rs 42,000 crore, the amount spent on loan waiver was only Rs 14,508 crore. Neighbouring Tamil Nadu, which launched the scheme in 2016-17, spent only Rs 1,500 crore after announcing that Rs 4,548 crore would be set aside.

Farm loan waiver announced by the KCR government runs concurrently with its flagship programme Rythu Bandhu, a farmer investment support scheme, which was rolled out last year. The CM claims the scheme has drawn applause from across the world, including the United Nations, and that the central government’s Kisan Samman Nidhi is an offshoot of Rythu Bandhu.

