YSRCP flays TDP anti-farmer policies

Asserting that the TDP Government is playing foul with farmers on the loan waiver issue, YSR Congress has demanded the State to ensure that bankers will refrain from adjusting the loan amount to the payments made to the farmers for their produce.

“With the State insisting that all payments should be made only through cheques for  the agriculture yield,  farmers are at a loss for being defaulters with Chandrababu Naidu not honouring the loan waiver scheme and bankers not releasing the amount,’ party spokesperson K Parthasarathi told reporters in Hyderabad on Thursday.

Scale of finance should always be prospective and not in retrospective effect and the TDP government is trying to deceive the farmers by scaling the down the amount to Rs 18,000 from Rs 24,000 without allowing the bankers to fix the amount on local conditions, he said. This was reduced only to slash the number of eligible farmers for the loan waiver by 25 %, he said.  

The State has to be categorical on why there were no takers for the Rs 56,000 crores earmarked by the bankers for agriculture loans during the khariff season.

Though this is the harvest season, farmers could not sell even 25 % of their yield due to many strictures, including the one that payments should be made only through cheques. With Chandrababu Naidu not keeping up his promise of waiving all agriculture loans, most of the farmers have become defaulters. As payments to farmers are being made through cheques, their loans are being adjusted to the amount due by the banks.

While the yield is in lakhs of tons, the purchases are in thousands of tones accounting for only five per cent of the total produce which shows the anti-farmer policy of the State, he said.

“The State should ensure that bankers do not adjust the loan amount to the payments,” he said adding that farming community fell into the web of debts. Earlier Millers used to pay advance even before harvest and the situation is not the same now. Payment to the agriculture yield purchased through designated centres is made through cheques, which is being adjusted by banks against the old loans pushing the farmers to hardships, he said.

Chandrababu Naidu from his foreign tour has been reviewing commercial aspects only ignoring the pressing issues pertaining to farmers, he said.