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Kerala Government will honour the mandate with total sincerity: Bhatia

Special Correspondent

Kerala mulls quasi-judicial body to help farmers in debt

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Kerala Governor R. L. Bhatia has said the Left Democratic Front (LDF) Government in Kerala is contemplating the setting up of a Debt Relief Commission with quasi-judicial powers to help farmers who have debts with private moneylenders charging exorbitant interest rates.

In his first address to the 12th Legislative Assembly, the Governor said the commission would arbitrate at the appropriate level at which debt contracted at high interest rates in the past should now be fixed.

Such debts could be taken over by banks wherever possible, with the Government coming in as a possible guarantor. The commission would also help decide on cases of debt write-off for destitute farmers, with the Government settling the entire debt on behalf of the farmers.

This intervention, through the proposed quasi-judicial body, is in addition to other measures (such as debt write-off in the case of farmers who had committed suicide) the Government had already announced.

Mr. Bhatia said the big mandate the people of the State had given to the LDF in the Assembly elections was "a verdict against the globalisation policies, rampant corruption, deterioration of law and order, atrocities against women and caste and communal-based sectarian strife that had made life of the people miserable during the last five years."

He promised that the Government would honour the mandate with total sincerity by making proactive interventions in all these areas.

The Government would give special attention to the farmers, whose tragic plight was evident from the many suicides that had taken place in the recent years; the workers in traditional industries; the fisher folk and marginalised sections such as the Adivasis and the Dalits.

He said the United Democratic Front had left the Government in deep financial crisis, with the debts reaching the level of Rs.43,637 crore and the ratio of debt to State Domestic Product touching 41 per cent. With a huge uncovered committed non-Plan expenditure and curtailed borrowing limits slapped on it by the Centre recently, the State needed to find ways to mobilise additional resources. He said the Government had identified information technology, biotechnology and tourism as new growth sectors. State public sector enterprises would receive stronger support.

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