Farmers express ire at bankers over loan waiver

Guntur: There is utter confusion among the bankers, farmers and the staff belonging to the Agriculture and Revenue departments over discrepancies in the lists released pertaining to loan waiver beneficiaries. The enraged farmers, names of whom are missing, express ire at the bankers, while the latter, in turn, are issuing warnings that they cannot work under such tense conditions. A bank official on condition of anonymity has gone to the extent of saying that 'Loan Waiver' was not their baby and the decision to waive loans was not taken by them. In some cases, the farmers are coming to the banks and shouting at the bank officials.

There are several reasons for the anxiety of the farmers and confusion among the top banking officials. In some cases, failure of the bank staff in updating their bank records to qualify for loan waiver despite the farmers submitting the relevant documents. On the other hand, the bank employees are a disenchanted lot as documentation of the records of farmers is putting a lot of pressure on their routine work schedule. Besides, the bank officials are becoming target of attack by enraged farmers.

The farmers are expressing their ire at the bankers as they are viewed as visible face of the government. Lack of clarity on the waiver of loans and the eligibility factor and the government's selective coverage of certain crops and ignoring others are contributing to the anxiety and confusion among the officials.

Many doubts are expressed over the government’s announcement like the waiving of loan amount up to Rs 50,000 at one go and whether an amount of Rs 60,000 would be waived or not. It is also not clear whether the loan would be waived if the amount of Rs 10,000 is paid by the farmers. Farmers for several reasons whose names are omitted in the first list are indignant and are taking government employees and bank officials as hostages and demand them to explain for the faux paus.

Farmers of Garlapadu village in Kakumanu mandal have taken a banker as hostage when he visited the village on Friday afternoon. Incensed by the behavior of the farmers, he wrote to his higher-ups that he cannot attend village meetings in future if such state of affairs continued.

It may be recalled that another incident of taking a revenue employee as hostage in Mupparajuvaripalem in Nuzendla mandal was reported in these columns on Thursday.