Farmers at a rythu sadassu have urged the government to take steps to issue identity cards and provide loans to all tenant farmers.
The meeting also wants the government to extend the subsidy seed, fertilizers, and crop insurance to the tenant farmers as well.
Rythu Sangham, a frontal organisation of the CPI (M), organised the farmers’ meet here on Thursday.
On the occasion, sangham district secretary J. Prabhakar said many tenant farmers had not applied for identity cards though gram sabhas were conducted in April. The tenant farmers could not come to a conclusion over tenancy by then.
As the tenant farmers and land owners had come to an agreement, the government should conduct the gram sabhas again, he said, adding that it would be of immense help to the farmers as the cash transfer scheme would be applicable to the card-holders only.
The government was requested to conduct the gram sabhas to receive the applications as it was practically not possible for the farmers to submit the applications at teh Mee Seva centres. A facility to submit applications through the VRO or the tehsildar needed to be introduced, he said.
The farmers at the sadassu recalled that there were 1.70 lakh tenant farmers in the district.
The tenant farmers were cultivating 70 per cent of the land in the district. The government issued identity cards to the tenant farmers after a protracted struggle. The bankers, however, were not willing to sanction loans to them.
The tenant farmers had succeeded in availaing themselves of the bank loans after waging a united struggle in Ungutur, Gampalagudem, Kankipadu, Bapulapadu, Veerulapadu, and Chandarlapadu vilages.The farmers were forced to knock the doors of money-lenders as the bankers were not willing to provide loans, they said. Rythu Sangham district president Y. Kesava Rao spoke.
