Telugu states: Most farmer debts with private moneylenders, says survey

Hyderabad: Farmers in the Telugu states are heavily indebted to private moneylenders, revealed the latest Economic Survey for 2016-17 presented in Parliament two days ago.

Loans taken from private moneylenders amount to 56 per cent of the total debt burden of farmers in the two states. Even though the Andhra Pradesh and Telangana state governments have waived crop loans, farmers are still in debt, the survey noted.

Soon after the two governments were formed in 2014, the AP government waived crop loans of Rs 24,000 crore and the TS waived Rs 17,000 crore worth of loans. The survey revealed that there is greater dependence on private moneylenders than on banks in both the states. The survey found that the states with the highest dependence on private money lenders for crop loans were AP, Rajasthan, UP and TS.

Panel on farm debts not yet set up
In AP, the debt of small and marginal farmers collectively amounted to Rs 44,599 crore (2016-17). The ba-nks lent only Rs 18,727 crore while money len-ders lent Rs 25,872 crore.

Breaking this figure down, middle-size farmers were indebted to the tune of Rs 7,388 crore, and big farmers had a debt of Rs 5,542 crore. The overall debt burden of farmers in AP was Rs 57,529 crore.

In TS, small and marginal farmers had a debt burden of Rs 27,000 crore, with private money lenders accounting for Rs 17,925 crore. Medium-size farmers have a collective debt of Rs 2,556 crore and big farmers, Rs 1,197 crore. The overall debt burden of farmers in TS was Rs 30,753 crore, with loans taken from private money lenders amounting to Rs 20,133 crore.

To save debt-ridden farmers from harassment by private lenders, the TS government adopted the Telangana State Commission for Debt Relief (small farmers, agricultural labourers and rural artisans) Act, in April 2016.

After the passage of the Bill, Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao said in the Assembly that the Act would provide succour to debt-ridden farmers who had been taking loans at high interest rates from private money lenders and falling prey to forceful money recovery methods.

The Act required the government to set up a Commission with a chairman and five members to enable farmers to settle disputes with their non-institutional creditors on the basis of a fair rate of interest.  No such Commission has been set up more than 16 months since the Act came into force