Farm Associations Bat For Debt Relief Commission In Telangana
MY ARTICLE WHICH REMAINED UNPUBLISHED............................
DC Correspondent
Hyderabad, July 20: With climatic conditions playing truant the fortunes of farmers has never been more precarious. In the backdrop of loan waiver by the State government farmers associations say this does not guarantee that the same farmers will not slip into debt again. The waiver itself they say is being implemented with preconditions and riders and leaves out many farmers.
Farmers fall into debt owing to problems that stalk them from spurious seeds to shortage of institutional credit, natural calamities, lack of MSP (minimum support price) and even export and import policies which play havoc with their fortunes. In this milieu they say there is a dire need to reconstitute the state commission for debt relief for small and marginal farmers. The crop insurance scheme is still at the planning stage in the State, said Sarampally Malla Reddy, AIKS state vice president, hence the need for a functioning commission.
The Telangana State Commission For Debt Relief (Small Farmers, Agricultural Labourers And Rural Artisans) Act, 2016. (act no. 12 of 2016) enacted on 27 May, 2016 during the BRS regime endeavours to empower it to pass awards after adjudication. It can recommend appropriate measures for the redressal of the grievances of small farmers, agricultural labourers and rural artisans through conciliation and negotiation and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.
The law was passed after a public interest litigation 315 of 2014 was filed in the High Court seeking its formation by Pakala Srihari Rao who went on to become its member. The BRS government constituted a three-member committee in place of the mandated five members.
“We functioned sans any judicial powers to arbitrate between the money lender and the farmers who approach us. Rules and regulations which should guide our work should have been laid out. This despite repeated pleas and reminders to the government. If the rules were framed we could have settled debts by arbitrating between the farmer and lender. The relief could be by way of even giving extended time to pay, reducing interest or even the principal amount. The commission should have been allowed to declare a mandal, one or more districts drought hit and distressed. This would have enjoined the banks to reschedule loans among other reliefs. The rulings given by us would be binding on the government as it is based on hard data from the ground,” Pakala Srihari Rao said.
The commission is meant to address the concerns of farmers with less than five acres. For SC, ST farmers the limit is 10 acres. We need more powers with rules framed to function properly so it will be prudent for the present government to empower the commission, said Nagarla Venkateshwarlu, former chairman of the commission.
The Act empowers the commission to suo moto or on application declare an area, district as distress affected, undertake adjudication of disputes between farmer and individual creditors but sans rules these powers remained on paper.
I moved the court by filing a PIL 279 of 2015 seeking the framing of such rules. The government sought time to respond recently in the high court, Srihari Rao said.
The KCR government amended Section 26 of the 1971 Passbook Act to remove the requirement of recording the status of the person who tilled the land. This left 75 per cent of the real cultivators out of the records. This should be brought back to enumerate tenant farmers who constitute fifty percent of those who end their lives. With the mechanism to identify them absent the commission can chip in and recommend in case they occur. It can go to the field and give rulings which are binding on the government, Malla Reddy said. (G Ram Mohan)
