BENGALURU: Welcoming CM’s announcement of a package of schemes to bail out farmers in distress, KPCC vice president and former Chairman of Legislative Council, Prof B.K. Chandrashekar, on Saturday said he was hurt that certain ministers had mocked at him for seeking a hike in the ex-gratia amount from Rs 2 lakhs to Rs5 lakhs to be paid to the kin of growers who committed suicide recently.
In a statement released here, Prof Chandrashekar, who hails from Mandya district, said he toured the district and met families of farmers soon after the spate of suicides in June-July and met local authorities too to identify the trigger for such extreme action. His pleas for an increase of the ex-gratia amount and the need to provide employment for one member of the family in grief were not only scoffed at, but some ministers even went to extent of claiming that farmers committed self-harm either because of addiction to alcohol or to gambling. In fact, he got an impression that he had committed a blunder by touring the district, and that the state unit of the party had turned dormant during such a crisis, he added. Prof Chandrashekar said “the government has done well, according to media reports, in waiving interest, including compound interest, on loans from co-operatives and freezing outstanding dues for a year. It is worth considering whether that period should be extended to say, five years. While licensed money-lenders are legally obliged to disclose the amount of loan due from farmers to district authorities, it should be made mandatory to display the disclosure in gram panchayats. It will be useful for the government to reintroduce the Debt Relief Act. It is also worth exploring the possibility of taking over outstanding dues including interest (the quantum can be different for marginal, small and medium farmers) and issue debt bonds to lending Institutions for a period of ten years with, say 10-12 per cent interest.”
He said policies should be introduced at macro and micro levels in order to prevent more suicides and to alleviate distress in future.
