New Delhi: In a move to alleviate the hardships being faced by farmers following failure of South West monsoon in different parts of the country, the government has decided not to effect any recovery of crop loan, including interest, during the current financial year, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said on November 13.

"This benefit will cover farmers in the affected areas, including the plantation sector," Vajpayee said in a statement.

Stating that the respective state governments would be taking all possible measures to protect the interests of plantation sector, the Centre has now decided to create a corpus of Rs 500 crore, with a substantial contribution from the Centre, apart from the contribution from state governments and a small contribution from the growers, Vajpayee said.

Income from this corpus would be used for providing relief to participating growers when the market conditions were depressed, he said, adding that the details of the scheme would be finalised shortly in consultation with the Finance Ministry.

Repayment of loans and interest given to coffee growers were being rescheduled upto a maximum of 11 years, he said.

PTI