Hyderabad: Nineteen months after the Legislature passed the Telangana State Commission for Debt Relief (small farmers, agriculture labourers and rural artisans) Act, 2016, the government has failed to constitute the state commission to enable debt-ridden farmers to seek protection from private moneylenders resorting to coercive acts to recover loans. On an average, four farmer suicides are being reported every day from districts for the past few days due to indebtedness.
Some petitioners have approached the High Court against the delay in setting up of state commission. Following this, the Hyderabad High Court directed the state government on August 21 year, to constitute the commission within three months. The November 21 deadline is set to end in another two weeks but there has been no initiative to set up commission. The law was passed on March 31, 2016, after TS topped the country in farmer suicides as per National Bureau of Crime Records.
It was revealed that the suicides were primarily on account of indebtedness due to crop loss on account of adverse weather conditions in the state. The Act failed to serve the purpose with the delay in setting up of state commission as mandated. The existence of state commission would have enabled farmers to approach it in case of coercive methods by money lenders. The commission has the power to make one-time settlements between farmers and lenders.
The government has promised to sanction Rs 3 crore seed money to the commission, to repay debt of money lenders on behalf of farmers and collect the same from farmers after their crops get remunerative price in market. After the passage of Act, Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao made a statement in the House that the law would prevent farmers from exploitation by private lenders particularly when they are in distress conditions following drought, crop damage/failure or inability to market their produce at remunerative price. However, 19 months down the line, the Act exists only on paper with no state commission to enable farmers to approach it in case of debt burden.
Banks worry over waiver scheme, may lose Rs 100 cr:
With Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao declaring that the government has completed the farmer crop loan waiver scheme, banks are worried about the recovery of about '100 crore. On the request of the government and according to RBI guidelines, the State-Level Bankers Committee had taken a decision to convert the crop loans taken by farmers in Adilabad, Medak and Ranga Reddy districts as term loans. This was done in view of natural disasters affecting farmers in these districts.
The government had assured the bankers that these rescheduled loans would taken under the crop loan waiver scheme. Accordingly the bankers rescheduled the crop loans as term loans in these three districts. However, these loans were not covered the waiver scheme as assured. The bankers said that farmers were refusing to repay these loans claiming that they were under the waiver scheme.
In Medak district, about Rs 45 crore loans of more than 10,000 farmers were converted into term loans, the rest coming from the other two districts. In the latest SLBC meeting, bankers requested the government to take a sympathetic view and cover these term under the waiver scheme. Asked about this, a finance department official said that once the Chief Minister had announced the closure of loan waiver, they would not be able to repay bankers.
