Leader of the Opposition in the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly and President of the YSR Congress Party, Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy has called upon his party cadres and people to agitate against what he termed as “anti-farmer policies” of the Telugu Desam Government in the State, starting from Friday.
At a press conference here on Thursday, he regretted that while the debt burden of farmers and members of the DWCRA (Development of Women & Children in Rural Areas) thrift groups was a whopping Rs. 1.05 lakh crore, Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu had sanctioned a mere Rs. 5,000 crore for the purpose. He said that from Friday, dharnas would be staged outside Collectorate complexes in all the districts of the State demanding Government attention to the woes of farmers.
He recalled that while Mr. Naidu had made lot of promises before the elections, he had promptly done a U-turn on virtually every one of them. “The Chief Minister has not told the people how much of farm loans would be waived. Earlier, he said farm loans would be waived and then he changed it to crop loans,” the Opposition Leader said, adding that it was time Mr. Naidu offered clarity on the subject.
Mr. Reddy expressed concern that while the farmers were confused over the issue of whether their loans would be waived or not, the banks nevertheless, were imposing penal interest on their past loans. For the kharif season this year, a sum of Rs. 570 crore that was released as crop insurance was added to the loan account, he pointed out.
Of an estimated one lakh bank accounts that were on record, Andhra Pradesh had considered only about 22,000 accounts, he said, regretting that Mr. Naidu had not bothered to clearly express how much of the loans would be waived. “No crop insurance, no waiver of loans and no fresh loans,” were the problems that farmers were confronted with, Mr. Reddy added .
