The Congress party alleged that the State was in deep agriculture crisis and accused Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao of trying to compensate ₹4,000 per acre to farmers after causing a loss of ₹2.76 lakh each due to non-payment of crop losses for drought, unseasonal rains and other factors.
TPCC chief spokesperson Sravan Dasoju in a presentation made at Gandhi Bhavan here said Rythu Bandhu scheme was intended to divert people’s attention from the government’s failure.
He said when nearly 35 lakh farmers were yet to get back their passbooks from banks and while nother 3.5 lakh women had mortgaged their jewellery for crop loans, the government cannot claim that farmers are happy. The programme, organised by Kisan Khet Mazdoor Congress, was attended by TPCC president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy and other senior leaders.
Mr. Dasoju said as per data disclosed in the SLBC meeting held on March 30, 2015, a total of 42.96 lakh farmers had overall debt of ₹26,781.31 crore. The TRS government had agreed to clear off debts of ₹17,000 crore from 35.29 lakh farmers. Debt amounting to ₹9,781 crore of about 7.66 lakh farmers remained untouched.
On an average, these farmers had a debt of ₹1,25,595 each. The State government has cleared only ₹48,159 debt of each farmer, he said. This relief did not help the farmers, he claimed, as it was divided into four installments and banks had levied interest of 14%. The farmers still had an average uncleared loans of ₹12,100 each.
He claimed farmers across the State owed about ₹19,530 crore to various banks at an average debt of ₹41,584. “The CM is giving an ointment for a patient who needs to undergo surgery,” he said ridiculing the claims being made by TRS leaders regarding Rythu Bandhu scheme.
