Clear air over crop loan waiver: Jana

Hyderabad: Main Opposition Party leader K Jana Reddy said the government had the responsibility of clearing the confusion prevailing over crop loan waiver scheme and instil confidence among the farmers to see that there would be no suicides in the State.

After the Chief Minister’s reply on farmers’ suicides issue in the Legislative Assembly on Wednesday, Jana Reddy raised some issues for clarification from the government. Jana Reddy said there was no problem in waiving off the loans with the 80 percent of the farmers who had taken loan around Rs 50,000.

The problem was with the loans of more than Rs 1 lakh. Many farmers were committing suicide due to various reasons including loan waiver. The government had to make a clear statement and before that it was better to waive off the loans at one go instead of creating confusion among the farmers, he said.

Stating that the farmers were not getting even the income earned by a government attender, Jana Reddy said that 91 percent of the rural families were earning only Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000 a month. He said the government had to think as to how to improve the income of rural families.

He suggested to the government to dig huge pits in the lands of the farmers to increase the groundwater level. “There is no guarantee of assured water even after the government constructs big projects in the State as there is no water in the projects. It will take several years for the completion of projects,” he said. The government had to take up this one as a pilot project, he added.