HC orders waiver of loans for TN farmers

Farmers across Tamil Nadu heaved a sigh of relief on Tuesday after the Madras high court took cognizance of their 23-day protest at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi and ordered the government to waive off all agricultural loans, benefitting close to 20 lakh farmers in the state.

The Madurai bench of the Madras high court, comprising Justice S Nagamuthu and MV Muralidharan, ordered the Tamil Nadu government to waive of farm loans taken by farmers from cooperative societies and stop recovery proceedings against defaulters.

Initially the state government had waived the cooperative bank loans of small farmers, who owned less than 5 acres of land. The HC order extends benefits to all farmers in the state, who may own more than 5 acres of land.

The farmers erupted in cheers and even tried carrying their leader, P Ayyakannu, on their shoulders.

“There are around 20 lakh farmers who had loans from such banks. 16 lakh had already benefitted under the scheme by the state government. The new order will benefit the other 4 lakh farmers too, who had also lost their crops in the drought,” said P Ayyakannu, the state president of the National South-Indian Rivers Linking Farmers’ Association.

However, the farmers feel this is a small victory. “Our loans from nationalised banks still remain. We will continue to fight and protest , until our demands are met,” said Ayyakannu.

They have vowed to continue the protest, until the Centre waived their loans from nationalised banks, revises drought relief packages, provides solutions to water scarcity, and helps fix produce prices. They have also asked that a Cauvery Management Board be instituted, and national rivers interlinked to help with the alleged drying up of the TN leg of river Cauvery.

:Haryana police had prepared ‘untraced’ reports beforehand in 81% of the 1,084 cases regarding violence in the 2016 Jat agitation before parleys on withdrawing cases began in 2017 between the state government and the agitation leaders.

A close scrutiny of reports submitted before Punjab and Haryana high court reveals that of the 1,084 FIRs in Rohtak, police probes reached a dead end in 883 cases. Most reports were prepared between July and December 2016 on the high court’s direction.

In over 90% cases, judicial officers have shown their dissatisfaction with the probe. Study also reveals a total of 684 FIRs were filed in Rohtak city and now there are 575 untraced reports.

A total of 2,110 FIRs were registered concerning the quota violence in almost eight districts. Rohtak registered the most FIRs at 1,084

The city had witnessed largescale damage to private and government properties and FIRs include arson, loot and vandalism. Separate figures of losses in Rohtak are not available but a probe panel report had estimated losses of as much as ₹20,000 crore