Warangal: Farmers expressed their discontent over the Union Budget presented by finance minister Arun Jaitley on Monday. Terming the Budget anti-farmer, they said increasing the prices of the fertilisers and not increasing the minimum support price were not in favour of the farmers.
Farmers of Akinepalli Mallaram in Eturnagaram mandal listened to the finance minister’s speech on the radio and said it is very disappointing.
Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, chairman of Agricultural Technology Management Agency Nasireddy Sambashiva Reddy said that the farmers were expecting the Centre to waive loans of the farmers in view of poor rainfall and low output and to contain the suicides of the farmers who are in deep debts, but that did not happen.
“Earlier the farmers used to get loans up to Rs 1.5 lakh without the need to produce any property for surety. We were expecting the Central government to increase it to Rs 3 lakh. They were not able to give any kind of assurance to the families of the farmers who committed suicide,” he said.
Mr Sambashiva Reddy said even though the schemes like linking the employment guarantee scheme with agriculture and Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana were beneficial for the farmers, no national irrigation projects or measures were announced to provide better irrigation conditions.
