Farmers to agitate for total loan waiver

It is therefore decided that a massive agitation is to be launched against the state government and Union government as revealed in a rally of farmers held at Kolhapur on Tuesday.

The agitation is to be launched under the banner of Swabhimani Shetakari Sanghtana (SSS). While speaking in the ally the SSS chief Raju Shetty, MLA has pointed out that the government's policy to import agriculture produce without giving fair price to national agricultural commodities and to neglect the farm sector which has only 2.8 percent growth rate while that of other sectors is 18 percent is responsible for the present farmers' plight.

It is therefore necessary that total loan waiver for all farmers should be announced and implemented by both the Union and state government without which continuous mass agitation would not stopped.

Both Mr. Shetty and other speakers in the rally have referred to the Karnataka state government which has not depended on the Union government's limited loan waiver scheme but waived loans of all farmers with the result that farmers in the Karnataka state are relieved of debt burden while in neighboring Maharashtra state farmers are hard-pressed by loan burden and lack of fair price for agricultural produce as also for milk supplied by farmers to milk dairies. The first state of agitation is a massive procession to the Kolhapur collector's office on July 1.

The discontent and agitation has political connotation as the farmers wing of the Communist Party of India (CPI) known as