Finance Space

The big-bang farm loan relief announced in the UPA government’s election year budget just got bigger. The government on Friday said it would waive farm loans to the tune of Rs 71,680 crore, nearly 20 per cent more than the Rs 60,000 crore of relief announced in the budget.

Instead of the earlier estimate of 3 crore small farmers, full waiver would now accrue to nearly 3.7 crore of them. And the number of farmers, who would have to reschedule most of their loans is now estimated at 60 lakhs, down the earlier estimate of 1 crore.

New credit card data released Thursday by TransUnion.com shows the first quarter of 2008 marked the first dip in credit card debt and loan delinquencies since the beginning of 2007.

The Chicago-based credit and information management firm said average credit card debt and national credit card loan delinquency (the ratio of borrowers 90 or more days past due) had statistically relevant quarterly declines. National average credit card debt per credit card borrower dropped 1.25 percent to $1,673 since the fourth quarter of 2007, though the total remains 5.6 percent higher than $1,584 in the same period last year.