BELAGAVI: Four months after the announcement of the Rs 44,000-crore farm

scheme, the state government on Wednesday admitted only a handful of farmers have benefited so far.

Cooperation minister Bandeppa Kashempur told the legislative assembly that only about 800 farmers have availed benefits of the scheme, announced by the CM on July 5. In his party’s manifesto and in pre-election rallies, Kumaraswamy had vowed to waive farmers’ loans within 24 hours of assuming office.

Justifying the delay, Kashempur said the government was expecting 43 lakh applications from farmers, including 20 lakh farmers who have availed loans from cooperative banks and the rest from nationalized banks.

Kashempur said commercial and district central cooperative banks have been asked to submit information. The two databases — submitted by farmers and the banks — were to be crosschecked before preparing the final list, known as green list. The slow implementation of the scheme was mainly due to the delay in generating the second green list, and not because of shortage of funds.