Congress MP and former TPCC president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy said tenant farmers are the worst-hit with no financial or insurance support by both the BJP government at the Centre and the TRS government in the State.
He said in a statement on Wednesday 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 in Telangana.
“By simply saying that 'Landholding is the primary condition for eligibility for Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN), the Central government is declaring that it doesn’t care for millions of landless tenant farmers across India. Similarly, the Telangana government has not included tenant farmers in Rythu Bandhu scheme that provides investment support to farmers,” he said.
Mr. Reddy said there are 18 lakh tenant farmers in Telangana who are cultivating around 20% of agricultural land. However, tenant farmers have been facing discrimination with loans denied and kept out of priority sector lending programmes, 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 and formal banking institutions. He said that the share of Telangana's tenant farmers in the Joint Liability Groups (JLG) of ‘Bhoomi Heen Kisan' is too nominal.
He said that the Centre has claimed that there were 54,08,798 JLBs across the country and a loan amount of ₹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 and the amount disbursed to them was mere ₹148.76 crore. This means that each JLG consisting of 4 to 10 members received a loan of ₹17,855 only. In a group of 10 members, each member on average received only ₹1,788. Is that sufficient for crop cultivation by a farmer? he asked.
He said that the previous Congress government 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 government. However, the TRS government is yet to implement it, he alleged.
He said an estimated 28% of villagers in Telangana are 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 ₹78.01 crore was disbursed to them. In the year 2021-22, only 29 tenant farmers were given a total credit of ₹23.42 lakh, he said.
