Focus on timely repayment

Abheek Barua’s article, “How farm loan waivers can hurt” (July 27), raises an important issue at a time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi is dreaming of doubling farmers’ income.

Huge pile-up of non-performing assets in banks is an acute problem and the announcement of loan waiver schemes will mitigate it. Credit is indispensable for farmers because there is a wide gap between their duration of earning and spending. Due to several reasons, farmers are not able to repay loans, which is essential for smooth functioning of the credit cycle. The 2011 agriculture census revealed that close to 22.1million of farmers remained