The Hindu : Front Page : Interest on farmers' crop loans waived

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Sunday, Oct 01, 2006
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Interest on farmers' crop loans waived

Special Correspondent

Massive benefits in offing for farmers in suicide-hit 16 districts

HYDERABAD: Interest amounting to Rs. 1,436 crores accruing till June 2006 on crop loans taken by farmers from cooperative societies and banks in 16 districts has been waived under the just-announced Central agriculture package.

Also, the package places a two-year moratorium on repayment of the principal (Rs. 9,000 crores). Farmers can remit the amount in instalments. They will get fresh loans amounting to whopping Rs. 73,000 crores over the next three years.

Hereafter, the family of a farmer who commits suicide will receive Rs. 50,000 as ex gratia in addition to Rs 1.5 lakhs to be paid by the State Government.

Suicide-hit districts

These are part of the largesse out of the Rs. 9,650-crore programme offered to Andhra Pradesh under the Rs. 16,978-crore Central package.

"A lion's share but quite natural as Andhra Pradesh accounted for 16 out of 31 districts identified as suicide-hit," Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy said on Saturday.

These districts were identified on the basis of high incidence of suicide by farmers. They are: Anantapur, Kadapa, Kurnool, Chittoor, Nellore, Mahabubnagar, Warangal, Karimnagar, Nizamabad, Adilabad, Mahabubnagar, Ranga Reddy, Medak, Nalgonda, Khammam, Prakasam, Guntur and Krishna.

Announcing details of the package at a press conference here, Dr. Reddy said it would ensure a heavy infusion of new funds for farmers. He thanked the Prime Minister for immediately fulfilling the promise made by UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi at Kadapa.

He said irrigation and other agriculture-allied sectors would get a never-before boost now. Irrigation alone would get Rs. 5,789 crores facilitating completion of several pending projects. Likewise, there was provision for seed replacement (Rs. 470 crores), watersheds and check dams (Rs. 960 crores), horticulture (Rs. 640 crores) to supplement family income, drip irrigation (Rs. 75 crores) and livestock, fisheries and dairying (Rs. 264 crores).

As the task ahead was stupendous", an Agriculture Technology Management Agency headed by the Chief Secretary would monitor all these programmes.

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