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PACS apathy towards farmers lamented
Special secretary of Agriculture and Cooperative Department B Rajasekhar said that it would be better to shut down Primary Agriculture
• Official stresses the need to amend Coop Act
Vijayawada: Special secretary of Agriculture and Cooperative Department B Rajasekhar said that it would be better to shut down Primary Agriculture Cooperative Societies (PACS) when they were not disbursing crop loans to tenant farmers without any documents, securities and reference. Cooperative sector is meant to support those, who are really cultivating lands whether they are owners, or tenants, he stated.
He, along with commissioner of Cooperative Department J Murali, visited PACS at Nunna near Vijayawada on Tuesday. They reviewed the sanctioning of loans in PACS with Andhra Pradesh Cooperative Bank (APCOB) chief information officer M Srinivasa Rao, district cooperative officer (DCO) NVR Anand Babu and district registrar (DR) Ramana Reddy and Nunna PACS president Polareddy Sambi Reddy.
He interacted with the cooperative and revenue staff about the number of tenant farmers receiving loans and the status of agriculture.
Briefing them on the PACSs disbursement strategy, Nunna PACS president Sambi Reddy told the special secretary and commissioner that advances are given to the tenant farmers with the consent of the land owner. He added that majority of the land owners avail the crop loans depriving the tenant farmers of loans. He lamented that the tenant farmers were borrowing money from private lenders at very high interest rate. “PACS could not process loan to the tenant farmers, who have failed to produce consent letter from the land owners,” he informed.
Reacting to this, Rajasekhar asked the officials to shut down the PACS, if it could not help the real cultivator. He felt that the Cooperative Act should be amended giving discretionary powers to the PACS to extend loans to the tenant farmers even without the consent letters from the land owners. “The actual tiller should get the benefit and not those who own the land", he asserted.
Speaking to The Hans India, Rajasekhar said that the government would implement the cooperative rules to the dot. He emphasised the need to change the law and make it more helpful to the tenant farmers.
He found fault with the PACS in the State for not lending to the tenant farmers, while entertaining the land owners. “The actual person, who cultivates the land is denied support, while who owns it is entertained with all the benefits. We need to change this system, amend the law,” Rajasekhar asserted.
