The Punjab government has asked the SBI-led consortium of banks, which advances it a cash credit limit (CCL) every harvest for foodgrain procurement, to restructure an accumulated outstanding of Rs 21,000 crore. Separately, the Reserve Bank of India Monday approved the release of Rs 26,000 crore CCL for paddy procurement in Punjab, which commences in less than a week on October 1.

• A Punjab government official said that the consortium has been asked to treat the outstanding Rs 21,000 cr as a “soft loan”, with a promise to repay it in instalments. “We plan to clear the dues in instalments as we get the money from Centre.

• During the wheat procurement season in April this year, there was a standoff between the banks and the state over the unpaid debt, and the huge mismatch between foodgrain procured on behalf of the Union government and the stock in the FCI godowns. The RBI had then directed banks to set aside 15 per cent of this missing stock as wastage, but even so the stocks available in Punjab godowns were not adequate to cover the debt.

• This paddy harvest season, Punjab asked a CCL of Rs 26,000 crore for an expected bumper kharif crop, the highest ever CCL it has sought.

• Paddy procurement in Punjab will commence from October 1 and the state is expecting procurement of 150 lakh tonne of crop from the state.

• The SAD-BJP combine had faced wrath for the delay in the release of CCL on many occasions over the mismatch between value of physical stocks of foodgrain and money spent through CCL for buying wheat and paddy.

• In the last Rabi marketing season when CCL was delayed, Congress had accused Parkash Singh Badal-led government of having involved in Rs 12,000 crore “foodgrain scandal”. It alleged that RBI had directed all banks involved in lending to Punjab government’s ‘Food Borrowing Programme’ to provide for “potential losses” as foodgrains that were supposed to have been bought, had “vanished” from godowns.