After years of mental agony, the smiles are back on the faces of Tejawati and Narayanappa. The two farmers in Avathi village in Karnataka, around 60km from Bangalore, are among the first batch of 14 beneficiaries of the Centre’s ambitious loan waiver scheme for farmers.

A marginal farmer who grows hybrid grapes on one acre at Avathi in Bangalore district, Tejawati Rajagopal’s Rs 55,000 crop loan has been waived along with interest.

H.M. Narayanappa, who had taken a dairy loan of Rs 15,000 in April 2005 to supplement his household income, had to pay Rs 17,000 as dues to Canara Bank.

A shortlist of 14 beneficiaries was made public a few days ago during a visit by finance minister P. Chidambaram, who had unveiled the scheme in his budget on February 29. The names of the other farmers will be announced by June 30 after they are approved by the state-level banking committee.

Once the clearance comes through, the beneficiaries will be issued with a loan waiver/relief certificate. It will contain details of their loan account number and current status. It will also inform them that the interest/principal/ penalty on their loan has been waived, fully or partly.

The day they get the certificate, they can immediately apply for fresh loans.

But the premature announcement of the 14 beneficiaries has sparked a clamour among farmers with debts, all of whom want their loans waived.

Canara Bank manager K. Premnath said: “It is very difficult to convince the farmers that there are several criteria and not all their loans can be waived. There are small farmers and there are large farmers along with different types of loans. Each case will have to be seen separately.”

Under the scheme, small and marginal farmers owning land up to two hectares (4.9 acres) are eligible for a complete loan waiver. Those with land more than that will get a minimum waiver of Rs 20,000 on the outstanding amount under a one-time settlement scheme. Loans of Rs 71,680 crore will be written off.

Farmers have been waiting for a blanket waiver to come through and many have not paid their instalments thinking the Centre will take care of them.

Srinivas Raju, a small farmer with a debt of Rs 1.2 lakh, is one of them. Raju wants his crop and tractor loan balances to be waived and has stopped paying instalments ever since he heard of the government’s plan. “I have paid almost 75 per cent when most farmers do not pay for years. Should I not be rewarded with more relief?” he asks.

Under the finance ministry’s guidelines, for a farmer to be eligible, the loan should have been disbursed before March 31, 2007, and the loan term expired as on December 31, 2007, or latest by February 29 this year.

Those who could not pay by this date benefit the most.

Tejawati, who grows the Sharad variety of seedless grapes, took a horticulture crop loan for the first time in January 2007. As the crop perished in unseasonal rain during the plucking season this March, the bank recommended her case.

“I had taken a Rs 55,000 crop loan as I grow only grapes, a single crop a year. Of the 15-tonne yield expected, I could not even save 10 per cent. The bank has completely waived my (crop) loan and I have benefited up to Rs 65,000 along with interest due on it,” she says.

Her crop would have fetched her Rs 5 lakh and peace of mind as the waived loan amounts to a small part of a total Rs 4.65 lakh she had borrowed last year. She had taken Rs 50,000 as development loan, Rs 2.6 lakh as mini tractor loan and had an overdraft facility of Rs 1 lakh — all from Canara Bank’s Avathi branch. But in a year when the harvest has been totally destroyed, whatever relief comes her way is welcome.

“We have already planned for the next year and that will enable me to take another small loan in the next few months,” the mother of four says.

For a marginal farmer, she, along with husband Rajagopal, had been pretty well off until this year’s harvest loss. The family has been hit by a loss to the tune of Rs 10 lakh along with Rs 1.4 lakh that went into sinking two borewells that did not yield any water.

“I still have to pay Rs 40,000 to the fertiliser dealer, but all payments will have to wait till next March, when the next grape crop is harvested,” says Rajagopal.

But for Narayanappa, a poor dhobi who took a dairy loan to supplement his income, even a Re 1 waiver is a godsend. “I had taken a dairy loan to purchase a cow for Rs 15,000. I had repaid a part because it gave me good yield. But the cow died while it was pregnant and now I am left with over Rs 17,000 to pay. The bank told me that my dues (his principal, interest and penalty) were being waived. My name was announced on the list the day the finance minister came,” he says, barely able to contain his excitement.

Narayanappa’s tale is tragic. He had insured the cow for Rs 18,000. When it died, he was away in Jammu where his eldest son is with the Central Reserve Police Force. By the time he got back, it was more than seven days and the cow had been disposed of by his family.

According to insurance rules, he would have to pose with the dead cow and the photograph submitted for getting the payout. “I lost out on the insurance, but at least the bank put me on the list of beneficiaries. I thank the manager, who is like god to me,” he says.

A father of three girls and a son, Narayanappa lives in a tiny shack in Harohalli and irons clothes for a living. “I hardly make Rs 70 a day, whereas the cow was fetching close to Rs 150 a day as it gave a good yield. With the money, I got my elder daughter married to a CRPF jawan,” the 55-year-old says.

Both Canara Bank and Vijaya Bank, which have listed thousands of beneficiaries, guard the list zealously. “We cannot release the list as we are not authorised to. But farmers should be told that all their dues will not get waived automatically. Only the eligible will benefit,” a senior Vijaya Bank officer said.

Canara Bank’s Prem- nath says that at the Avathi branch alone, he has a list of 333 beneficiaries, whose accumulated dues are around Rs 1.07 crore.

What worries him is the attitude of some farmers who have refused to pay dues on even fresh loans. “The branch has disbursed Rs 14 crore in loans till now. So far, we had an excellent 89 per cent recovery. I think the government should make it very clear that not all loans will be waived.”