KALABURAGI: Even as CM H.D. Kumaraswamy gears up for his Grama Vastayva programme at Chandriki village in Gurmitkal Assembly constituency on Friday, Sedam BJP MLA Rajkumar Patil Telkur is taking out a padayatra from Yanagundi to Chandriki to draw the CM's attention to various issues including the waiver of farmers' loans which the latter has 'failed' to implement.
Accompanied by thousands of farmers, Mr Telkur will cover a distance of nearly 15 km during the padayatra and submit a memorandum to the CM at Chandriki village. Speaking to the media, Mr Telkur wondered what great purpose the CM's village stay programme would serve when he had failed to honour the promises made to people, mainly the farming community.
“The CM had promised to waive off farm loans within 24 hours of coming to power. But the promise has largely remained on paper. Sedam taluk was chosen as a pilot taluk for implementing the programme. Although nearly 20,000 farmers have benefitted from the loan waiver scheme in the taluk, the debt-free certificates have not reached many of them. Secondly even though the monsoon season has begun and sowing has commenced, the banks are not extending loans to farmers on the ground that the government had not reimbursed the loans waived.” Mr Telkur said another problem confronting the farming community is that the Kalaburagi -Yadagir District Central Cooperative Bank has gone bankrupt. Even though they had brought the issue to the notice of the CM as well as Minister for Cooperation nearly a year ago, no attention has been paid to reviving the bank.
“The government should have taken steps to provide Rs 200 cr to the bank so that it can extend loans to farmers,” Mr Telkur said.
