The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : More liberal crop loans sought for farmers

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jul 26, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

More liberal crop loans sought for farmers

By Our Staff Reporter

GUNTUR, JULY 25. Agricultural loans, especially the short-term low-value crop loans, must be disbursed more liberally for the benefit of farmers in the State, the Secretary Finance, A. Giridhar, said here on Sunday.

Speaking at a two-day seminar on `Indian Agriculture and Rural Indebtedness' organised by the Indian Liberal Group and the Virginia Tobacco Growers' Association, Mr Giridhar said failure of APCOB and the cooperative banking system to come to the rescue of farmers had resulted in the marginal and small farmers being badly hit.

Concern for tenant farmers

The Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams Executive Officer, Ajeya Kallam, expressed concern over the lack of credit facility to tenant farmers, who were a majority in agricultural activity. While the loans from the informal sector had come down in volume and even those available came with exorbitant rates of interest, the tenant farmers were finding it difficult to fund their kharif inputs. This was one of the reasons for the large number of suicides among farmers in the State, he observed.

The Tobacco Board Chairman, P. Dayachari, dealt extensively on the need to provide better marketing facility to paddy farmers, as in the case of tobacco.

Procurement method

The Government must devise a methodology for procurement of rice through the FCI at the local level and getting it milled there. By storing the produce locally the handling cost gets reduced to a great extent providing better margin to the grower and percentage cuts by the middlemen could be brought down to ultimately help the consumer.

The District Collector, K. Ramakrishna Rao, in his address on the concluding day said that tenant farmers were the worst affected and a lot needs to be done to provide them loans at cheaper rates. Majority of those who had committed suicide in the district had taken land on lease and owned very little or not at all.

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Andhra Pradesh