Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu’s visit to West Godavari district, slated for December 12, to launch the loan waiver scheme may leave over 90,000 debt-ridden farmers disappointed.
These less fortunate farmers were left out of the waiver scheme as they failed to produce ration cards. Ineligible for food entitlements under white ration cards, most of them did not want to apply for pink cards. Some applied but failed to secure them. The first phase of the Debt Redemption Scheme will take off across the State on Thursday with its launch by the Chief Minister in his native Chittoor district.
According to data available with bankers, there are 8.5 lakh farmers in the district who have availed agricultural loans to the extent of Rs. 7,435 crore during the period from April 2007 to December 31, 2013. Of them, 2.5 lakh accounts were shortlisted by the district administration for redemption upon production of ration cards, aadhar cards, voter identity cards and pattadar passbooks by claimants. It has been proposed to extend loan redemption certificates to 1.5 lakh farmers in the district during Phase-I of the Rytu Saadhikaarata programme launched by the government.
During a review meeting with the Department of Civil Supplies recently, District Collector Bhaskar Katamneni had revealed that he had requested the government to evolve an alternative mechanism to settle the accounts of borrowers without ration cards. Civil Supplies Commissioner B. Rajasekhar, who was present at the meeting, had said that such grievances could be redressed on a government portal from December 9 to January 8 next.
This implied that uncertainty continued to loom large on these borrowers. Moreover, the government has made it mandatory for borrowers to produce copies of ration cards, apart from conforming to other stipulations to ensure that only one beneficiary with a loan not exceeding Rs. 1.5 lakh in each family is covered under the debt waiver scheme. Meanwhile, the fate of share-croppers hangs in balance. The district administration has distributed loan eligibility cards (LECs) among just 1.15 lakh tenant farmers out of the total 2.5 lakh. Only 65,000 of those with loan eligibility cards got bank credit. B. Balaram, secretary of the Andhra Pradesh Rytu Sangham, dubbed the scheme as “eye-wash”.
