Govt on fund mobilisation drive

Hyderabad: With the elections are over in the state, the Congress government is now struggling to find ways and means to implement the promises it had made during the Assembly elections. It has some major promises like the loan waiver scheme for about two lakh farmers which Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy had vowed to implement by August 15.

The cash strapped government is now trying to find ways and means to mobilize necessary funds to implement the loan waiver scheme. One of the options the government was seriously considering was to go in for land regularization scheme so that it can mobilise nearly Rs 10,000 crore. Another option was to borrow money from the proposed farmers corporation. It may be recalled that the Congress had criticized the BRS government for forming corporations and borrowing money from financial agencies. According to top sources, the government needs around Rs 30,000 crore to Rs 35,000 crore to waive off the loans up to Rs 2 lakh taken by the farming community from the scheduled banks.

The LRS scheme has the potential to generate sufficient funds to meet the state requirements. Of the total 25.70 lakh applications, around 3.46 lakh were for layouts in the limits of the HMDA, 1.06 lakh in Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation limits, 2.99 lakh in the limits of other municipal corporations, 10.69 lakh in the limits of various municipalities, 1.30 lakh in the limits of urban development authorities and 6.17 lakh in gram panchayats. The only challenge is the finalization of the regularization fee. Denizens in Hyderabad are ready to pay hefty fees since the land value increased manyfold. The previous BRS government introduced the LRS scheme but put it on hold fearing backlash from the people in the election time.

The plan to float Farmers’ Corporation was also part of mobilization of funds through borrowings. However, the government was yet to prepare the modalities to run the corporation. The waiver of loans and bank linkage to the farmers to avail fresh loans would help the corporation to mobilize funds under productive agriculture sector, officials said, adding that the government was already borrowing loans from the RBI to meet the monthly expenses which includes payment of salaries and pensions of the government employees and interests on the loans taken by the previous government.

Under the precarious financial conditions, officials said, the government was not in a position to increase the taxes and put the burden on the people. Instead, the government was looking for alternatives for additional funds.