Nagpur: Former state minister Anil Deshmukh said that farmers were not getting any relief despite several assurances from the State Government. Farmers’ problems were getting bigger with non-availability of agriculture loans. Deshmukh recalled that when he was the minister, he had ordered to register an FIR against those banks rejecting agriculture loans to farmers.
Deshmukh said farmers were short of funds to meet sowing expenses and therefore they were approaching banks for agriculture loans. But they were returning empty-handed in what could be seen as violation of the order of the Nagpur bench of Mumbai High Court, which had ordered to provide loans to farmers by 31 May this year.
Agri Minister unable to solve farmers’ problems
Anil Deshmukh said State Agriculture Minister Chandrakant Patil was not capable of solving the farmers’ problems. Patil was always connected to sugarcane growers and he didn’t know the pains of those who grow soybean and cotton, Deshmukh said. He added that former Agriculture Minister late Pandurang Phundkar had promised to look into the issues of farmers from Nagpur district and some work had also started in that direction. But today the conditions had not changed, Deshmukh alleged.
Deshmukh informed that 58286 farmers in Nagpur district were eligible for loan waiver. Many of them were still deprived of crop loans. The loan distribution target for Nagpur district for kharif season has been set at Rs 1066 crores. However, only Rs 183 crores 88 lakhs were distributed so far to 13783 farmers, he said.
No relief even after announcement of loan waiver
Anil Deshmukh said that 11 months had passed since the State Government announced loan waiver, but due to the unreasonable rules and regulations, farmers were deprived of its benefits till date. Almost 80 different certificates were sought from farmers for the loan waiver scheme and new draconian rules were being imposed every day, Deshmukh alleged.
