Tripura SLBC relieves 54,000 farmers from debt burden

Agartala, Jul 8: The Tripura State Level Bankers Committee (SLBC) has relieved 54,209 small and marginal farmers, including 955 other beneficiaries, from debt burden according to the announcement of Debt Waiver and Debt Relief Scheme by Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram in the 2008-09 budget speech.

Talking to mediapersons here today, SLBC Governor and UBI Regional Manager Samar Sengupta said with the announcement, 15 different scheduled Commercial Banks, Regional Rural Banks, Cooperative Credit Institutions and Local Area Banks would get the debt amount of Rs 84.35 crore from the Union Ministry of Finance while losing prudentially written off and eligible Non Performing Assets (NPA) of about Rs 15 crore.

He said all the agricultural loans sanctioned to small and marginal farmers with land holdings upto two acres disbursed between April 1997 and March 2007 and other farmers who got loans upto Rs 50,000 and had been overdue by December 2007, were declared eligible under the scheme.

The beneficiaries of Debt Waiver and Debt Relief Scheme would now be eligible for fresh loans from the banks, Mr Sengupta underlined, adding that bank branches of the state had already been given the eligible borrowers list and they all would get waiver and relief certificate by July 15.

UNI