State fails to rescue tenant farmers

Adivasi farmers tilling the land 

The State government has failed to issue loan eligibility cards (LEC) to the tenant farmers enabling them to get crop loans from banks for Kharif-2016. 

Most of the tribal tenant farmers have failed to get the crop loans, as they do not have an agreement as evidence of taking the land on lease from the landowner. 

The state government promised to ensure Rs 25,000 bank crop loan to each tenant farmer for Kharif season.   

The move was initiated following the reports that landowners getting the benefit of the compensation for the crop damage and bank loans and subsidies instead tenant farmers who actually cultivated land taking the land on lease.

Village revenue officers (VROs) entrusted with the assignment of conducting a survey to identify the tenant farmers.

The state government has issued LEC cards to more than 3,000 tenant farmers but bank crop loans total Rs 10 lakh given only to 243 tenant farmers in the year 2015 in the Adilabad district.

Efforts are being made to increase the scale of finance to the tenant farmers and to give loaning to a number of tenant farmers.

Kiran Vissa, the representative of Rythu Swarajya Vedika, said tenant farmers would get befit of crop loans only when they get loans before the sowing but most of them did not get, as they were not issued Loan Eligibility Cards (LEC) by the state government.

He said, 70 percent are tenant farmers among the total farmers who were committed suicide in the Telangana and issuing LEC would be the first step towards  preventing farmers suicides especially cotton farmers.

It is learned that there are more than 10 lakh tenant farmers in the Telangana but among them, the state government was promised to issue LEC to only 4.15 lakh tenant farmers for this Kharif in the state. But, the state government not even issued 50,000 LEC so far to the tenant farmers this season in the state.    

Tenant farmers were more prone to committing suicide if they had incurred crop loss as they fully depend on rain-fed crops and take loans from moneylenders as most of them did not get institutional support.            

There are more than 1 lakh tenant farmers and total farmers are nearly 4 lakh in the district. It is found even the tenant farmers is cultivating cotton though the risk was  high in the cultivation of cotton and also investment cost when compared to other traditional crops.

Raymond Peter, Commissioner of Survey settlements and land records issued orders to the Agriculture and revenue departments Loan Eligibility Cards (LEC) to the tenant farmers and ensure each tenant farmer get more than Rs 25,000 bank loan.