Press briefing of Cabinet Decision taken on 2022-07-04

Writing off the non-performing loans obtained by paddy farmers

- The economic crisis which was mainly caused by the Easter Sunday attack and the subsequent COVID - 19 pandemic situation is further worsening and severely affecting every sector directly and indirectly. Even the farmer community which is approximately 30% out of the total population has been enable to deal with it and they had to face more hardships due to the decision of moving to organic fertilizer instead of chemical fertilizer. Under the circumstance, farmers have been unable to settle the loans obtained by them for paddy cultivation and those loans have been classified as non-performing loans by banks. It has become essential to provide relief to farmers with the intervention of the Government since the most of farmers could be disqualified to obtain loans for paddy cultivation in the next Maha season due to that reason. Accordingly, the proposal made by Hon. Prime Minister in his capacity as the Minister of Finance, Economic Stabilization and National Policies to write off principal amount of loans obtained from the Government banks for paddy cultivation in the blocks of land in extent of two hectares or less and has become difficult to repay as of now, was approved by the Cabinet.