No lease deed, no loans for tenant farmers: Govt

HYDERABAD: Agriculture minister

Pocharam Srinivas Reddy

said the government will not be in a position to help tenant farmers unless they have a

lease deed

on a

stamp paper

. Be it loans or other subsidies, they are given based on the ownership of land as listed in pattadar passbooks. Unless the pattadar gives a document of lease, a tenant farmer cannot be eligible for benefits as per law, the minister said.

Srinivas Reddy's comments are likely to dash the hopes of most of the tenant farmers in Telangana, one of the most vulnerable sections among the farming community. Even as farming operations for the Kharif crop season are expected to pick pace with the onset of monsoon, about 10 lakh tenant farmers, which is a bulk of that community, is expected to be left out of the purview of agricultural loans from banks as well as subsidised seeds and other inputs.

The minister was speaking to reporters after releasing the 2017-18 Agriculture Action Plan for Telangana here on Tuesday . Incidentally, the large number of tenant farmers also do not possess

loan

eligibility cards (LECs) that recognize their status as tenant farmers.According to one estimate that was also submitted to the High Court in a case relating to suicides among farmers in the state, not a single LEC was issued in 2014-15, while only 25,000 were issued in 2016-16.Incidentally , before Telangana was formed, farmers from the districts that subsequently became part of the new state, were issued with 58,000 LECs in 2013-14. Now without an LEC and the government saying that unless they have a lease deed on a stamp paper any farm related benefit -be it agricultural loans at nominal interest or input subsidies -cannot be delivered to the tenant farmers in the state leaving them out of any potential safety net. Many of them will also not be eligible for crop insurance unless they have some document showing rights over the land that has been leased by them. 'Ordinance with penal provisions for sale of spurious quality seeds' Hyderabad: The Telangana government will soon issue an ordinance with penal provisions to prevent manufacture and sale of poor and spurious quality seeds, agriculture minister Pocharam Srinivas Reddy announced on Tuesday. This will be later replaced with a legislation, the minister said. Srinivas Reddy said the proposed ordinance will ensure that farmers who are victimised by companies selling poor quality seeds, will be compensated for losses suffered from using such seeds.The minister was answering questions from reporters after releasing the 2017-18 Agriculture Action Plan for the state. The minister said anyone manufacturing or selling such seeds will be booked under PD Act. The government, which is working towards becoming the seed capital of the country , will not tolerate manufacture or sale of sub-standard seeds, he said.

In reply to another question on whether the government will advise farmers against any particular crop, Srinivas Reddy said it was true that last year, farmers were asked not to plant cotton on the expectations that there would be a glut in the market. “But farmers are experienced and they know what crop to plant. Government will not tell them what to do,“ he said.

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