A group of farmers under the Haritha Sena, a farmer organisation, took out a march and staged a dharna in front of the Lead bank (Canara Bank) here on Friday, raising a slew of demands including full waiver of the interest on farmer loans during the moratorium period.
Speaking after inaugurating the dharna, M. Surendran, president of the organisation, said that the idea of moratorium was to defer repayment to ease the burden caused by COVID-19 and the lockdown to the farming community in the country.
The moratorium on loan repayment was lifted on August 31 and the farmers were now forced to pay the their debts with penal interest, Mr. Surendran said.
Farmers had suffered huge crop losses owing to the recurring floods in past two years after a drought in the district in 2016-17, P.N. Sudhakara Swami, district coordinator of the organisation, said.
The burden of the crisis increased further owing to the impact of the pandemic and the lockdown, Mr. Swamy said. As the farmers are not in a position to repay the huge debt, including the penal interest, the government should consider either waiving their entire agriculture loans or write off the interest on their loans during the moratorium period, he said.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had directed the nationalised banks to take their own decisions regarding the interest on farmer loans during the moratorium. As the decision of bankers would not be farmer-friendly, steps should be adopted at the government level, he said.
It is feared that the request of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan in a recent State Level Bankers Meet to extend the moratorium would only worsen the situation of the farming community, he said. If the period was extended, a huge debt, including the interest and penal interest, would fall on each farmer after the moratorium, he said. The government should announce relaxation on farmer loans as under the Disaster Management Act, instead extending the moratorium, he said.
