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Meena Menon

Interest waiver, debt rescheduling main thrust of PM's package

THE PRIME MINISTER, Dr Manmohan Singh, with the Union Agriculture Minister, Mr Sharad Pawar, at a press conference in Nagpur. — Vivek Bendre

Nagpur , July 1

Interest waiver and debt rescheduling form the main thrust of Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh's Rs 3,750 crore-package of relief measures to help the farmers in six districts of Vidarbha in Maharashtra. Hundreds of farmers have committed suicide in this region unable to bear the heavy burden of debt brought on by reducing prices for cotton, the main crop in the area.

In addition, a special rehabilitation package will be launched to mitigate the distress of farmers in 31 districts across the country, where farmers have committed suicide. The Government has identified 16 in Andhra Pradesh, three in Kerala, six in Karnataka, apart from the six in Maharashtra.

Burden reduced

Announcing this at a press conference at Raj Bhavan here, Dr Singh, said that the entire overdue interest will be waived off and all farmers will have no past interest burden as of today. The Union Agriculture Minister, Mr Sharad Pawar, the Maharashtra Chief Minister, Mr Vilasrao Deshmukh, the Union Aviation Minister, Mr Praful Patel, and others were present on the occasion.

In his opening statement, the Prime Minister said that there is a cry all around for providing relief from debt and in many cases the overdue interest exceeds the original loan. The overdue interest in the six affected districts in Vidarbha is around Rs 712 crore as on June 30. The waiver of interest will make farmers immediately eligible for fresh loans from the banking system, he said. The Central and State governments will share this burden equally.

In addition to this, Rs 1,296 crore of overdue loans as on June 30, will be rescheduled over a period of three to five years with a one-year moratorium. He also promised to ensure an additional credit flow of Rs 1,275 crore in 2006-07 in the six districts and special teams will be deputed from the Nabard and other banks to ensure this.

No blame game

The Prime Minister gave the Maharashtra Government a clean chit and said he had not come on a faultfinding mission. The State had taken some good steps and the Centre was strengthening them, he pointed out . On the issue of better remunerative prices, he said that these things needed to be discussed properly and would take time. He said he was also aware of the need to move away from the focus on cash crops.

Dr Singh said the interactions in the last two days with farmers and widows of those who had committed suicide had left a deep impression on his mind. He proposed to place a sum of Rs 50 lakh each at the disposal of each collector in the six suicide affected districts to be used for reducing the distress of families.

He said these short-term measures would definitely ensure that there is a difference in the situation. In addition, the package also has several long-term measures. The Central Government will provide Rs 2,177 crore towards the completion of 524 major, medium and minor irrigation projects in these districts over the next three years. .

Other initiatives

A Rs 180 crore Quality Seed Replacement Programme will be started so that the problem of good quality seeds is sorted out. The six districts will get Rs 240 crore for watershed development, check dam construction and rainwater harvesting.

In addition, the package allots Rs 225 crore towards the National Horticulture Mission, which will cover all the six districts, including Buldhana and the problems in orange cultivation will also be addressed. It is proposed to expand drip and sprinkler irrigation to cover 50,000 hectares.

Dr Singh said it was important that farmers have additional sources of livelihood in addition to farming.

"We propose to start a major programme costing Rs 135 crore for improving cattle and fisheries activities in these districts. Hopefully, this will ensure that there would be parallel streams of income to reduce dependence on agriculture," he said.

Execution issues

Since, implementation has been an issue with such packages, Dr Singh said that his own office would monitor the implementation of the package and he had already asked his Principal Secretary to hold a meeting of officers concerned to avoid bureaucratic delays.

In addition to these measures, he said there was a nationwide problem of agricultural indebtedness.

He added that this had to be treated as a national problem and addressed on a war footing. The government will set up an Expert Group in the next few days to look into the problem in its totality and suggest measures to provide relief.

More Stories on : Agricultural Policy | Natural Calamities

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