Extend loan waiver to all farmers in State, BRS to Congress govt

Promised should be extended to benefit all the farmers instead of finalising beneficiaries in a selective manner

Hyderabad: Demanding the State government to demonstrate its steadfast commitment to the welfare of the farmers, BRS leader and former Minister for Agriculture, S Niranjan Reddy on Thursday said that the loan waiver promise should be extended to all the farmers instead of restricting it to select groups.

Taking a serious note of the government moves to facilitate loan waiver and taking the PM Kisan Samman norms into consideration, he said farmers should be treated as farmers. The loan waiver promised up to a limit of Rs 2 lakh should be implemented to benefit all farmers instead of finalising beneficiaries in a selective manner.

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When BRS chief K Chandrashekhar Rao was the Chief Minister, over 70 lakh farmers were extended Rythu Bandhu assistance of Rs 10,000 per acre. But when the Central government sought to extend its assistance in a similar manner under the PM Kisan Samman, the number of beneficiaries in the State was restricted to a mere 36.1 lakh.

The number of Kisan Samman beneficiaries was further brought down to only Rs 29.50 lakh farmers in the State. The Congress had come to power in the State by making false promises. The Congress government was now devising new ways to cut down the expenditure likely to be involved in implementing its own guarantees.

But such moves would be counterproductive for the party in the long run. He pointed out that the government did not finalise even the cutoff date for the implementation of the loan waiver yet. There was no final decision yet on the scale of assistance to be given to the farmers under the Rythu Bharosha.