91 per cent Andhra Pradesh farmers are debt-laden

Hyderabad: Nearly 91 per cent of farmers in AP are debt-ridden. Unable to repay their debts to private moneylenders, farmers sometimes commit suicide, state Agriculture department statistics. This was informed to the AP Assembly too in the recent Budget Session by minister for agriculture P. Pulla Rao.

Most of these farmers are tenants who number nearly 25 lakh. Of them, only 1.4 lakh get loans from banks. Nationalised banks, in spite of repeated directions from the government, do not extend loan facilities to tenant farmers since the lands are not in their names.

The real owners — who usually live in cities — avail of the loans and in turn lend to the poor farmers at high interest rates, states a study by the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture (CSA), in Hyderabad.

Though the AP government has started issuing identity cards to tenant farmers – 5 lakh ryots were have been issued ID cards – only 1,36,000 could get loans.

They faced problems under the loan waiver scheme too as not all of them were covered, stated CSA. The government, however, has disagreed, contending that all tenants will get the waiver. "The amount first gets deposited in the owners’ accounts and they fail to pass it on to the tenants. We will take corrective steps in this regard," Mr Pulla Rao said.

According to National Sample Survey reports, each farmer in AP has a debt of Rs 1.25 lakh on an average.

The period between 1995 and 2013 was the worst for farmers in the united state and according to police records alone, 38,000 farmers had taken their own lives. Even in 2014, nearly 1900 ryots had taken the extreme step, according to unofficial reports by different NGOs.

Mr Pulla Rao, however, has refuted this claim and said that just 24 farmers had committed suicide since their party came to power in June 2014. "The reasons for the deaths are many, including crop loss, family problems, health issues, unable to repay the debt etc" he observed.

"This is totally wrong as we have surveyed several districts and the figure was nearly 1100. In rain-fed districts of Ananthapuram and Kurnool, the number is much higher," said Mr G.V. Ramanjaneyulu of CSA.

The AP government had recently raised the compensation to the bereaved families from Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 5 lakh.