VJAS demands promotion of food crop in Vidarbha

Nagpur, Jul 14: With the ongoing agrarian crisis following failure of monsoon in Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, a campaign is on the rise demanding government to promote cultivation of food crop as against the commercial crop as a relief measure.

Spearheading the campaign Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti (VJAS) has urged the government to take immediate measures in this regard. Its President Kishor Tiwari in a statement yesterday said the cotton farmers in the region are left high and dry with the banks yet to commence disbursement of fresh loans.

The banks were supposed to notify beneficiaries of the Central government sponsored loan waiver scheme by June 30. But Vidarbha's farmers were notified only on the last day. Since the beneficiaries of the waiver were defaulters, the banks till date have not given fresh crop loans to them, which has forced them to turn to other source of capital like private money lenders.

In a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, it has urged the government to provide special food crop promotion relief package to save the cotton farmers as more than 50 per cent area under cotton cultivation is barren since the failure of first and second sowing cotton seed due to lack of rain. It has also demanded free distribution of jawar and bajra seeds along with Rs 2,000 per acre incentive to these food crop.

UNI