Short-Term Agricultural Loan Waiver Scheme (Rin Mafi Yojana 2018)

What was the Chhattisgarh Short-Term Agricultural Loan Waiver Scheme?

Short-Term Agricultural Loan Waiver Scheme, known locally as the Rin Mafi Yojana 2018, is listed by the Cooperation Department (Sahakarita Vibhag), Government of Chhattisgarh, on its official scheme page at coop.cg.gov.in. The department's description is short and specific: short-term agricultural loans taken by farmers from PACS up to 30-11-2018 were waived off by the State Government.

The waiver was announced on 17 December 2018, immediately after the change of government in the state. Reports of the announcement put the scale at over Rs 6,100 crore of short-term agriculture loans held by more than 16.65 lakh farmers, measured as on 30 November 2018, drawn from cooperative banks and Chhattisgarh Gramin Bank. The Cooperation Department's own portal carries the notification under the heading "ऋण माफ़ी योजना 2018" in its notifications list.

Short-Term Agricultural Loan Waiver Scheme is closed. It was a one-time measure tied to a fixed cut-off date, not a rolling programme, and there is no application window open today. Anyone offering to "get your loan waived under this scheme" for a fee is running a fraud.

Why was the waiver limited to cooperative short-term loans?

Chhattisgarh's short-term crop credit runs through a three-tier cooperative structure, the village Primary Agricultural Credit Cooperative Society (PACS), the District Central Cooperative Bank, and the Chhattisgarh State Cooperative Bank (Apex Bank) in Raipur. The state has 2,058 PACS and LAMPS, according to the Cooperation Department.

Because the state already channels its interest subsidy through that structure. The department confirms short-term agricultural loans of up to Rs 5,00,000 are made interest-free to farmers through cooperative societies and banks, the loan accounts were already in the government's field of control. A waiver could be applied account-wise at the society without asking farmers to prove anything. That is why the scheme had no application form.

The same three-tier structure is why the cut-off was expressed as a date rather than as a crop season: the PACS ledger balance on 30 November 2018 was a single, verifiable number for every borrowing member in the state.

Who was covered, and who was not eligible?

Covered by the waiver:

• Farmers who were members of a Primary Agricultural Credit Cooperative Society in Chhattisgarh.
• Those holding a short-term agricultural loan. A crop loan: outstanding with the society as on 30 November 2018.

Not eligible, and cannot apply now:

• Anyone who took a crop loan after 30 November 2018. The cut-off is absolute; later borrowing is repayable in the normal course.
• Holders of medium-term or long-term agricultural loans, and of non-agricultural loans such as housing, vehicle or consumer loans from a cooperative institution. The waiver was confined to short-term agricultural credit.
• Farmers whose loan was not with a cooperative society. The Cooperation Department's description is limited to PACS loans, although the announcement as reported also referred to cooperative banks and Chhattisgarh Gramin Bank. A farmer should check the position of their own account with their lender rather than assume coverage.
• New applicants today. No fresh application, online or offline, is accepted under this scheme. There is no portal registration to make.

What documents matter now?

Nobody needed documents to receive the waiver, because it was applied to existing accounts. Documents matter only if you are pursuing a correction.

How to apply, and what to do instead

There is no application for the Short-Term Agricultural Loan Waiver Scheme. The steps below are the route to follow if you believe an eligible account of yours was missed.

1. Get the account position in writing from your society. Ask the Secretary of your Primary Agricultural Credit Cooperative Society for a statement of your short-term agricultural loan account as on 30 November 2018, and for the entries made after the waiver was applied.
2. Compare it against your Kisan Kitab. A mismatch between the passbook and the society ledger is the usual root of a missed waiver.
3. File a written representation with the District Deputy Registrar of Cooperative Societies, attaching the society statement, your Kisan Kitab copy, membership number and Aadhaar. Keep the receiving stamp.
4. Escalate to the Office of the Commissioner, Cooperation and Registrar of Cooperative Societies, Raipur on 0771-2511920 if the district office does not respond.
5. Use the Cooperation Department's dispute jurisdiction if needed. The department functions as a civil court under the Chhattisgarh Cooperative Societies Act, 1960, and passes orders at trial and appellate level in disputes between a member and a society.

How to check whether your loan was waived

1. Ask the society Secretary to show the waiver entry against your loan account in the society's ledger.
2. If your society has gone live under the state's PACS computerisation project — all selected PACS in Chhattisgarh reached Go-Live by 31 December 2024 to ask for a system-generated account statement rather than a handwritten one.
3. Check that no interest has continued to accrue on a waived balance. Query any such debit immediately.

Why some accounts were missed

• The loan account was in a different name, for example a father who had died or a joint holding not yet mutated in the land record.
• The borrowing was recorded after the cut-off, even though the money was taken earlier. The ledger date, not the disbursement conversation, decides.
• The loan was classified as medium-term rather than short-term at the society.
• The member had borrowed from more than one institution, and only the cooperative account was covered.
• Ledger migration errors during computerisation, where the pre-2018 balance did not carry across correctly.

Where to get help

• Secretary, Primary Agricultural Credit Cooperative Society, the first and most useful stop, since the ledger is there.
• Block Cooperative Inspector, then the District Deputy Registrar / Assistant Registrar of Cooperative Societies.
• Office of the Commissioner, Cooperation and Registrar of Cooperative Societies, Raipur to 0771-2511920; Additional Commissioner 0771-2511923.
• Chhattisgarh State Cooperative Bank (Apex Bank), Raipur: general helpline 0771-2539690.

What changed in the cooperative structure after 2018

The waiver was applied through the PACS network, and that network was itself reorganised soon afterwards. The Cooperation Department records a one-time grant of Rs 50,000 per society to 725 newly formed Primary Agricultural Credit Cooperative Societies restructured in 2020, meant for operational and office setup expenses. Chhattisgarh now has 2,058 PACS and LAMPS in all.

For a farmer chasing an old waiver entry, that restructuring matters practically. If your village society was split, merged or newly formed in the 2020 exercise, the ledger holding your pre-2018 balance may sit with the parent society rather than the one you deal with today. Ask the Secretary which society held your account on 30 November 2018 before assuming the record is missing.

Computerisation is the second change. Every selected PACS in Chhattisgarh reached Go-Live under the state's PACS digitisation project by 31 December 2024, so account histories that were previously handwritten are now retrievable from the software. Ask for a system-generated statement rather than a manual extract when you raise a waiver query. It is harder to dispute and easier to escalate.

Related current schemes for Chhattisgarh farmers

Because the waiver is closed, the live cooperative-sector supports are what matter to a farmer today. The Cooperation Department currently provides interest-free short-term agricultural loans of up to Rs 5,00,000, up to Rs 3,00,000 interest-free for fisheries and horticulture, up to Rs 2,00,000 for lac producers, and cattle-rearing loans at 1 per cent up to Rs 2,00,000 and 3 per cent between Rs 2,00,000 and Rs 3,00,000. The separate Agricultural Credit Stabilization Fund allows short-term loans to be converted into medium-term loans after a natural calamity, which is the standing relief route now that the 2018 waiver has ended.