Tiruvarur
The Tamil Nadu All Farmers Organisations Coordination Committee has urged the State government to use the COVID-19 special additional fund allotted to Tamil Nadu by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development to set off the outstanding crop loan taken by the farmers from the cooperative institutions.
In a statement issued here, P.R. Pandian, president of the committee, said that the NABARD had announced that ₹1000 crore would be allocatted to Tamil Nadu as COVID-19 special additional fund for disbursement as crop loans to farmers through cooperative financial institutions.
Hence, the State government should utilise this fund to waive the loans and release fresh loans without any conditions. Further, the old system of processing and disbursement of loans should alone be adopted in the primary agricultural cooperative banks, he added.
The committee also expressed opposition to bringing the sale of urea and fertilizers under the cashless digital transaction mode, claiming that most of the farmers did not know how to handle smart phones. Even if they knew how to transfer funds through netbanking facility most of them were not in a position to purchase smart phones, said Mr.Pandian.
Under these circumstances, insisting the fertilizer retailers to carry out their business through the digital mode of transaction only and setting July 15 as the deadline for switching over to a cashless mode of money transactions were highly condemnable.
Further the announcement from the Union Government that funds required to enhance the agricultural production at a cost of ₹1 lakh crore would be sourced from the private sector was nothing but a move to mortgage the agriculture sector with the Multi-national Corporate Companies, he added.