HYDERABAD: Chief Minister Y.S.Rajasekhara Reddy on Sunday agreed to take an all-party delegation to New Delhi to impress upon the Centre the need for waiving the interest on farmers' loans and include the waiver in the Central package given to the State following farmers' suicides.

The delegation, which is likely to accompany Dr.Reddy when he goes to Delhi for getting the high command's clearance of the party candidates' list for the Legislative Council elections, will meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P. Chidambaram.

The Chief Minister, according to CPI leader K. Ramakrishna who was among the representatives of different political parties that called on him, agreed to lead the delegation after they submitted a memorandum.

Burden of farmers

The representatives who called on Dr.Reddy included M.Kodanda Reddy, N.Tulasi Reddy (Cong.), E. Dayakar Rao (TDP), Azeez Pasha, Chada Venkat Reddy, K.Ramakrishna, K.Nageswara Rao, R.Venkaiah (CPI), and Subba Rao and Ramakrishna (CPI-M). They impressed upon him the need for the Centre to include the interest waiver in the package so that farmers need not pay any interest, a press release issued by the CPI said.

The leaders informed the Chief Minister that farmers were disappointed at the exclusion of the interest waiver in the package. The 11per cent interest on rescheduled loans would cause a burden of an estimated Rs.5,000 crores to ryots. Hence the Centre should waive the interest to be paid by farmers who, it may be recalled, resorted to suicides unable to free themselves from the clutches of moneylenders. They also pleaded for legal steps to provide protection to ryots from private moneylenders so as to prevent suicides.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail