The Andhra Pradesh government has virtually contested the claim of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) that there was no major crop damage and production loss due to natural calamities and dashed off a letter on Tuesday marshalling facts and figures on the distress caused to farmers.
The government again urged the RBI to reschedule all short-term agricultural loans, including those given against the pledge of gold ornaments in all calamity-affected areas since kharif season had already started and farmers were eagerly awaiting fresh crop loans.
The letter assumes significance in the backdrop of RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan’s latest remarks against farm loan waiver saying the demand and hard facts were not matching.
It is learnt that Chief Secretary I.Y.R. Krishna Rao has written to the RBI pointing out that the government had declared 464 mandals as Phailin cyclone, heavy rains and floods affected in 2013. During kharif 2013, as many as 123 mandals were declared drought-hit and most of them were situated in Rayalaseema region.
Mr. Rao was believed to have given comparative figures of the cultivated area under food grains and the recorded production for six years from 2008-09 to 2013-14. The Chief Secretary was stated to have observed that comparing yields to judge the status of farmers would be a totally “lop-sided approach” and to treat the issue holistically, yields, remunerative prices, inflation, increase in input costs and other factors should be considered for arriving at proper conclusion.
Observing that recurrence of calamities resulted in severe distress among farmers and led to a number of suicides by farmers, he quoted statistics from National Crime Records Bureau that while Maharashtra witnessed around 3,146 suicides in 2013, the number was 2,014 in Andhra Pradesh.
