The Hindu : Front Page : Farmers’ suicides: PM to visit 3 States

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jun 20, 2007
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Farmers’ suicides: PM to visit 3 States

Gargi Parsai

To review rehabilitation package

Steps to enhance productivity to be studied
States complain about farm loans

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will again visit next month the three States from which the highest number of farmers’ suicides were reported — Vidarbha in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. The visit will take stock of the progress made by these States in implementing the Rs. 17,000 crore Farmers’ Rehabilitation Package announced by the Centre for 31 districts in these States and in Kerala. The Prime Minister, accompanied by Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, will also look at what the States propose to achieve under the new package for enhancing productivity. The package was announced during the recent National Development Council meeting.

While reviewing the progress on Tuesday — which was found to be tardy on the credit and irrigation fronts — --Mr. Pawar virtually used this information as a stick for the States to speed up the implementation process. Although the suicide rate is officially reported to have come down in these States, the progress in the implementation of the rehabilitation package is lagging. At Tuesday’s meeting, chaired by Mr. Pawar and attended by senior officials including the Chief Secretary of Maharashtra, the States came up with a lot of procedural and funds-related grievances that were proving to be roadblocks in making effective the Centre’s intervention effective.

Almost all the States complained of the slow progress made by nationalised banks in reducing the interest rate on farm loans and in rescheduling loans — which is at the centre of farmers’ distress in these drought-affected districts. The banks have neither met their lending targets nor have they given the requisite relief on loans and interests to farmers.

Almost no progress was reported on watershed development, rainwater harvesting and micro-irrigation projects. The reasons given are cumbersome guidelines and confusion in availability of funds. The rainwater harvesting programme, for instance, earlier funded by the banking division of the Finance Ministry under the 10th Plan, has not been included for funding under the same head in the 11th Plan, hitting the programme.

The minor irrigation programme has not started because it has been linked to credit under the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund, whereas the resource-starved States are looking for grants.

The affected States are also seeking relaxation of norms under the Accelerated Irrigation Benefit Programme for major and medium irrigation programmes. They are seeking 90 per cent grant instead of 25 to be able to complete irrigation projects that will benefit farmers in the 31 predominant suicide districts of these States.

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