Bengaluru: Chief Minister Siddaramaiah indicated on Thursday that the coming state budget would give the rural sector a better deal, including more opportunities for youth to stop them from migrating to cities and turning their villages into "old age homes."
In a pre-budget interaction with farmers here, Mr Siddaramaiah hinted at a special package, including financial assistance for rural youth to help them start agriculture- related businesses like animal husbandry in their villages and stop their migration to towns and cities in search of opportunities..
While he assured the farmers that the budget would also aim at fetching them a good price for their agricultural produce, they in turn appealed to him to waive off their loans owing to the continuing drought in the state.
Mr Siddaramaiah explained that farmers had taken around Rs 52,200 crore in loans from both commercial and cooperative banks. The share of the cooperative sector was only Rs 10,000 crore and if this amount was waived, only 19 per cent of the farmers would benefit.
If the Centre, however, waived off 50 per cent of the commercial loan, the state government could waive off the rest, benefiting all farmers, he said. The government had written to the Prime Minister asking for the waiver and he would raise the issue himself when he met him, the Chief Minister assured.
But emerging from the meeting, the farmers' leaders asserted that they were in no position to repay their loans due to the drought. "The government cannot escape responsibility by pointing fingers at the Centre all the time,'' they protested. Also, disagreeing with the Chief Minister that e- auctioning of agricultural produce had stopped traders from cheating farmers, they said the opposite was true as they were computer illiterate and did not understand the process in e-auctions. "The government needs to streamline the entire system," they insisted.
