The Andhra Pradesh government move of extending the deadline for receiving loan waiver complaints by 10 days have failed to please the farmers in Prakasam district, who turned restive on Friday alleging that slow processing at the complaint cell was testing their patience.
More than 2.47 lakh farmers with bank accounts are at their wits’ end as their names have not figured in the two lists released by the government after an elaborate enumeration to identify the beneficiaries of the loan waiver scheme.
Tired of running from pillar to post to get their names included in the list of beneficiaries prepared at the village and mandal levels, farmers, who thronged the Prakasam Bhavan with the hope of getting debt relief sooner than later, staged a demonstration at the agriculture office on the premises on Friday.
“We are tired of this delay-tactics. We did not expect this from Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, who had promised to waive our loans,” a visibly irked J. Satyanarayana said, while waiting for his turn to lodge complaint at the agriculture office in Prakasam Bhavan.
The authorities have taken hardly 13,800 applications on file in the last 15 days.
Plea to clear doubts
“Given the pace, how many days more we have to wait to submit our pleas? ,”asked D. Venkat Rao, another ryot and demanded that bank representatives must be present at the counters to clear their doubts.
“The officials are taking hardly 500 applications per day, while tens of thousands of farmers have to register their complaints,” Andhra Pradesh Rythu Sangam Secretary D. Gopinath said and wanted the district administration to increase the number of counters to at least 20.
