ANANTAPUR: The district unit of Communist Party of India (CPI) has demanded that the State Government give a clear assurance to the farmers of the district who have been denied the crop insurance benefit, as the agriculture season is approaching fast.

Talking to newspersons here on Thursday, district secretary of the party M.V. Ramana and deputy secretary C. Jaffer said the Government stand on the issue was not clear so far. Even Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy's recent assurance was also not clear as to what kind benefit the farmers would get.

Emulate DMK

They urged the Congress Government in the State to emulate the recently elected DMK Government in Tamil Nadu, which had scrapped crop loans worth about Rs. 7,000 crores taken from the cooperative societies. Even the Vaidyanathan Committee had also recommended concessions to the farmers.

Both the crop loans taken from cooperative societies and commercial banks should be written off, as the farmers were suffering losses, the CPI leaders demanded.

Out of 97 lakh farmers' families in the State 85 lakhs were caught in the debt trap, they stated in support of their demand.

The CPI would enforce banks' bandh on May 31 to build pressure on the Government to write off the crop loans. The party would also stage protests in front of the mandal offices on June 5 with the demand of implementation of NREGS in all the districts in the State.

Alleging that the State Government had been denying local bodies their due power for long the CPI leaders mentioned that Karnataka was ahead of all in the matter of devolving 29 powers to the gram panchayats as necessitated by the 73rd amendment to the Constitution.

Indiramma villages had become Congress villages as only the Congress workers and sympathisers were getting the benefits under the scheme, instead of the genuinely eligible families. On the forthcoming local bodies' elections the CPI leaders said they were planning to contest 71 MPTCs and 10 ZPTCs in 31 mandals. The party would go it at alone in alliance with the CPI (M), if the local leadership of the Congress fails to recognise their strength and oblige their demand.

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