Congress for moratorium on loans by money lenders

Expressing concern over unabated suicides by distressed farmers across the State, the Opposition Congress has suggested to the government to impose one year moratorium on recovery of farm related debts by private money lenders.

Though the blame game continued between the ruling and opposition parties during the heated discussion on agrarian crisis in the Telangana Legislative Council for the second consecutive day here on Wednesday, the House in the end agreed on confidence building initiatives both from the State and the Centre to give hope to farmers.

Earlier Congress members Farooqi Hussain and M.S.Prabhakar said the TRS government was late in waking up to the impending crisis in farm sector that resulted in hundreds of despondent farmers committing suicide. It failed to live up to the expectations it aroused in people and farmers.

“Had the TRS government heeded the advice of Congress Party and convened a special session on farmers’ issues much earlier, the crisis could have been tackled better,” they said.

The TRS government should consider imposing moratorium like the Congress government did in 2004 on recovery of farm loans by private money lenders to spare the distressed farmers from further harassment, Mr. Prabhakar said.

He regretted that the government totally failed to see the warning signals that came from MET guidance nor the Chief Minister attended the SLBC meeting to convey seriousness of the situation to the bankers. The failure of the government to waive loans at one go also aggravated the crisis, he said.

So lax was the government and its official machinery that they failed to send the report on 103 drought-hit mandals last year to get Central aid, he said and demanded a village-wise reinvestigation of farmers’ deaths to determine the exact number as the State’s figures on suicides were misleading.

Debunking opposition criticism, the ruling party members- Paturi Sudhakar Reddy, Srinivas Reddy, B.Venkateswarulu said farmers suicides were not confined to one region. The TRS Government despite several constraints, managed to provide water and power and input subsidy to help the farmers and more were in the offing, they asserted.

Mr. K.Yadava Reddy said though several expert committees gave their reports in the past to tackle crisis in farm sector, not even one report was implemented. Though budgetary allocation for agriculture came down slightly this year, supporting sectors including irrigation and power got the boost.

MIM member Altaf Rizvi said if successive governments and the TRS had taken proactive measures to support the farmers, suicide rate could have come down.

Taking exception to some members targeting Centre, BJP member Ramachandra Rao said the Centre initiated several measures for farmers’ welfare including National Crop Insurance scheme. He welcomed Congress party’s suggestion to take an all-party delegation to Centre on farm crisis.