Telangana farmers are increasingly worried regarding the implementation of congress government’s much-touted crop loan waiver. In desperation, many are flocking to grievance cells, hoping that filing a complaint might solve their issue.
However, their complaints remain unresolved, fueling criticism that these grievances are merely being collected as a superficial measure to prevent farmers from protesting or opposing the government. There are growing concerns that the complaints filed at the grassroots level are not being escalated to higher authorities.
The government had announced, in two installments, that loans up to Rs. 1.5 lakh would be waived for 17.75 lakh farmers, amounting to Rs. 12,224 crores. However, these waivers appear to be more theoretical than practical, with thousands of farmers still waiting for their loans to be waived.
As a result, many farmers are visiting Agriculture Extension Officers (AEOs) and banks, seeking answers as to why their loans were not included in the waiver. Issues such as mismatches in names between Aadhaar cards and passbooks, lack of ration cards, government employment, payment of income tax, and missing passbooks are common obstacles. Bank officials are turning away farmers unless their names appear on the official loan waiver list, claiming they have no authority to assist otherwise.
Complaints have been flooding grievance centers, AEO offices, and banks across various districts. Agriculture Minister Tummala Nageswara Rao has acknowledged that due to technical issues and other problems, 17,000 farmers in the first phase and 30,000 in the second phase did not receive the promised loan waivers. This amounts to approximately 47,000 farmers being left out across both installments.
So far, only 7,000 of these issues have been resolved. TESCOB Bank officials admitted that 30,000 farmers were excluded from the waiver list due to technical errors and mistakes by officials in basic agricultural cooperative societies, with 3,982 farmers missing from the list entirely.
The BRS party has been receiving a significant number of complaints via WhatsApp from those whose loans were not waived, with over 45,000 grievances reported through this channel alone. District-level grievance centers have also been inundated with complaints. It is reported that around 26,000 complaints have been registered at these centers. These figures only account for the complaints submitted in person; it is believed that the number of grievances reported to AEOs is twice as high.