Uttam demands Centre & TRS govts include tenant farmers in welfare schemes & crop damage aid

Hyderabad, July 27 (Maxim News): Congress MP & former TPCC president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy has accused both BJP Government at the Centre and the TRS Govt in Telangana of neglecting tenant farmers in the State.

In a media statement here on Wednesday, Uttam Kumar Reddy informed that a written reply by Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar to a question raised by him in the Lok Sabha, has exposed the injustice being done to tenant farmers in the country, especially Telangana State. He said the Centre gave a generalised reply and misleading information on the steps taken for the inclusion of tenant farmers and sharecroppers in various schemes. He said the Union Minister completely avoided answering the question on the non-inclusion of tenant farmers in the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) even in the States which provide cash support to landless tenant farmers such as Odisha and Andhra Pradesh. “By simply saying that ‘Land holding is the primary condition for eligibility for PM-Kisan, the Central Govt is declaring that it doesn’t care for millions of landless tenant farmers across India. Is the Minister declaring that millions of tenant farmers are not ‘Kisans’? Don’t they deserve the same “Samman” as the land owners with pattas?, he asked.

Uttam Kumar Reddy said there were 18 lakh tenant farmers in Telangana, who are cultivating around 20% of agricultural land. However, tenant farmers have been facing discrimination. Instead of supporting them with a separate sub-target, they are being included in the same group as SMFs. This is being done to cover up the fact that a majority of tenant farmers are being denied loans and kept out of priority sector lending programs, he alleged. The Congress MP pointed out that the Centre has openly admitted that tenant farmers, sharecroppers and oral lessees have been excluded from institutional credit/formal banking institutions. He said that the share of Telangana’s tenant farmers in the Joint Liability Groups(JLG) of ‘Bhoomi Heen Kisan’ was too nominal.

The Union Agriculture Minister, in his reply, claimed that JLGs of ‘Bhoomi Heen Kisan’ were informal groups of 4-10 members engaged in similar economic activities and willing to jointly undertake to repay the loans taken by the group. In the Union Budget of 2014-15, it was declared that 5 lakh JLGs of Bhoomi Heen Kisan will be financed through NABARD. The Union Minister shared a table giving large numbers of Joint Liability Groups (JLGs). But the table did not specify how many of them consist of tenant farmers or Bhoomiheen Kisan (landless farmers).

The Congress MP said the Centre has claimed that there were 54,08,798 JLBs across the country and a loan amount of Rs. 1,12,772 crore was disbursed to them in the year 2021-22. With just 83,313 JLBs, Telangana stood 17th in the list of 36 States & Union and the amount disbursed to them was a mere Rs. 148.76 crore. This means, on average, each JLG consisting of 4 to 10 members, received a loan of Rs.17,855 only. In a group of 10 members, each member on average received only Rs.1,788. Is the Minister claiming that a loan of Rs.1,788 is sufficient for crop cultivation by a farmer?, he asked.

Uttam Kumar Reddy said the previous Congress Govt had enacted the Andhra Pradesh Land Licensed Cultivators Act, 2011, to provide eligibility cards, crop loans, government subsidies, insurance and compensation in times of natural calamities to all tenant farmers. Nearly 12 lakh tenant farmers were also identified for issuing Loan Eligibility Cards (LEC) by the then Congress Govt. However, he said that the TRS Govt was yet to implement the law. He said an estimated 28% of village people in Telangana were landless and at least 15 lakh tenant farmers would be eligible for LECs. However, as per the recent report of the Telangana State Level Bankers’ Committee (TSLBC), as of March 31, 2022, LECs were issued to only 18,366 tenant farmers and an amount of Rs. 78.01 crores was disbursed to them. In the year 2021-22, only 29 Tenant farmers were given a total credit of Rs. 23.42 lakhs in the year 2021-22. This shows the complete neglect of Tenant Farmers by the Govt of Telangana as well as Govt of India, and the hollowness of claims of the Minister of Agriculture in his Lok Sabha reply, he alleged.

“The data on Kisan Credit Cards (KCC) and PMFBY also makes clear the exclusion of tenant farmers. While there are more than 12 crore landholdings in the country out of which at least 20% are operated by tenant farmers as per NSSO data, the data presented shows only 7.14 crore KCC accounts and does not specify how many tenant farmers are covered. It is evident that the KCC does not cover even all the land-owning farmers, let alone the tenant farmers. Similarly, the PMFBY data quoted shows that about 25 lakh applications were received from tenant farmers whereas there are about 2.5 crore tenant farmers in the country, which means only 10% are covered by crop insurance,” he said.

“TRS Govt has excluded the tenant farmers from the Rythu Bandhu scheme and they don’t get the financial input of Rs. 5,000 per acre. The BJP Govt at the Centre too has kept the tenant farmers excluded from almost all schemes. In this scenario, about 18 lakh tenant farmers in Telangana have no option but to depend on private financiers who charge them exorbitant interest rates,” he said. Since Telangana has not joined the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojna, the tenant farmers, along with others, are not eligible to claim any insurance for the damages they suffer due to any natural calamity, he said.

He said that the Telangana High Court had to intervene to provide compensation to the tenant farmers who lost their crops due to the floods. In September 2021, the Telangana High Court bench headed by the then Chief Justice M.S. Ramachandra Rao, responding to public interest litigation (PIL) filed by Vissa Kiran Kumar, Kanneganti Ravi and S. Ashalatha of Rythu Swarajya Vedika, has asked the government to include tenant farmers under the ambit of “disaster compensation”.

With absolutely no support from either the TRS or BJP Govts, tenant farmers of Telangana are in distress. The farmers’ organisations have estimated that about 350 tenant farmers have committed suicide due to distress in the last two years. As many as 5,912 farmers died of suicides between 2014 and 2019 in Telangana and 1,478 of them were tenant farmers,” he said.

Uttam Kumar Reddy demanded that the BJP Govt at the Centre and TRS Govt in Telangana change their approach towards the tenant farmers by including them in welfare schemes to provide loans and also cover their crops from damage due to natural disasters or other reasons. (Maxim News)

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