BRS working president K.T. Rama Rao addressing a press conference in Hyderabad on Friday.
The crop loan waiver scheme implemented by the Congress Government in the State is the biggest-ever betrayal of farmers in Telangana as it is extended only to 46% of ryots who have outstanding debt with banks and cooperative societies.
Addressing a press conference here on Friday, BRS working president K.T. Rama Rao said that the government had winded up loan waiver by writing off debt of ₹17,934 crore, up to ₹2 lakh a farmer, and it was extended to only 22 lakh farmers as the government had considered family as a unit and not individual farmers.
Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy had promised to write of about ₹41,000 crore of outstanding loans at ₹2 lakh per farmer, but it was brought down to ₹31,000 crore in the Cabinet meeting, and only ₹26,000 crore was allocated in the Budget. When it came to implementation, only ₹17,934 crore was written off, Mr. Rama Rao pointed out.
Cheating case
He sought to know how the government had managed to implement ₹2 lakh loan waiver with ₹17,900 crore when the BRS Government had spared nearly ₹16,150 crore on writing off outstanding debt of farmers up to ₹1 lakh in the first phase implemented from 2014 to 2018. The betrayal of farmers by the Chief Minister warrants a cheating case as it was he who spoke of extending the loan waiver benefit to every farmer.
KTR told the Chief Minister that in case the crop loan waiver was implemented 100%, he (CM) could take him to Kodangal constituency and if farmers state that it was extended to all at least in one Rythu Vedika, he (KTR) would quit politics.
BRS would expose the Congress Government’s betrayal of farmers in every Assembly constituency by explaining to people the number of farmers who had outstanding debt and the number whose debt was written off, along with the amount.
Citing examples, Mr. Rama Rao said that the crop loan waiver was implemented to only 71,000 farmers in Mahabubnagar district, out of 1.72 lakh farmers, who had outstanding debt. Similarly, in Khammam it was written off to 1.16 lakh farmers against over 3.73 lakh farmers who had outstanding dues. AICC leader Rahul Gandhi had stayed away from the loan waiver meeting as he was aware that it was implemented only partly.
He also ridiculed the CM’s demand for Harish Rao’s resignation without implementing loan waiver to more than half of the farmers. He stated that the call centre set up by BRS had so far received over 1.11 lakh complaints about denial of loan waiver.
