Bangalore: Farmers, weavers and fishermen have repaid loan arrears totalling Rs.1,000 crore, including Rs. 567.96 crore taken by them during last year from various cooperative institutions, utilising the loan/interest waiver scheme announced by the State Government in the budget. Today was the last day for availing themselves of loan waiver.

Cooperation Minister G.T. Deve Gowda told presspersons that a large number of borrowers had availed themselves of the facility to become eligible for loan at four per cent interest. Cooperative institutions had started distributing loan applications to farmers for taking up sowing. The Government had decided to disburse Rs.1,500 crore for the purpose.

He was speaking to presspersons after a meeting with Revenue Minister Jagadish Shettar and senior officials of the Reserve Bank of India, NABARD and Karnataka Apex Cooperative Bank. Mr. Gowda said out of the total Rs. 5,011-crore arrears, Rs. 1,200 crore came under the long term and mid-term loans and Rs.1,000 crore had been waived.

The Minister said the recovery of loans given during last year had reached 78 per cent. Out of Rs. 212.56 dues under the mid-term loans category, Rs. 38 crore had been recovered during the period accounting for 35 per cent.

Mr. Gowda said the State Government had reimbursed Rs. 800 crore to the cooperatives towards the waiver and would be paying more as and when it received bills from the institutions. He said that if the loan/interest waived was not reimbursed within a year, the cooperative institutions would incur a heavy loss and could not help nearly 80 lakh farmers. He clarified that it would not be adjusted in the account books.

He announced that the Karnataka Central Cooperative Bank of Dharwad would be strengthened soon. The bank had been entrusted to an administrator following its failure to recover arrears amounting to hundreds of crores.

Mr. Shettar said the bank had been asked to publish the names of defaulting textile mill directors and the list of properties they had pledged as surety for recovering Rs. 50 crore, in all the newspapers.

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