Andhra Pradesh - Others   

Relief sought for ryots

Special Correspondent

Plea to extend Prime Minister's relief package provision to all in order to contain suicides

KURNOOL: V angala Subba Rao, Joint Secretary of Andhra Pradesh Raithu Sangham, urged the Government to provide interest relief to all farmers against all existing farm loans in the State. Talking to reporters here on Thursday, he said the Prime Minster's relief package applied to only fresh loans, while the loans rescheduled in 2004 were being recovered with interest. The Prime Minister's relief package has a provision for interest waiver of Rs. 1,436 crores, while the interest burden on old loans amounted to Rs. 1,662 crores.

2 p.c. penal charges

He said, the farmers whose farm loans were rescheduled, attracted two per cent penal charges apart from the interest. The Raithu Sangham leader contended that all farmers should be given interest relief, irrespective of year of borrowing if the Government was sincere about containing suicides.

Mr. Rao said, out of Rs. 9,650 package, only Rs.1,436 crores was directly handed out to farmers in the form of interest waiver, while the rest of the amount flowed into the State Government's coffers towards `jalayagnam'. He said the Centre should not buy the idea that irrigation projects alone would stop suicides as the deaths occurred even in the canal areas indicating a deeper crisis. The Raithu Sangham will launch an agitation to extend the relief to all farmers.

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