Farmers' land to be auctioned in Maharashtra to recover loans-Gulfnews Report

Farmers' land to be auctioned in Maharashtra to recover loans

http://gulfnews.com/news/world/india/farmers-land-to-be-auctioned-in-maharashtra-to-recover-loans-1.658392

Auctioning off land will begin in Yavatmal, Akola, Washim, Wardha, Amravati and Buldhana in western Vidarbha with full police protection from July 23 onwards, it was decided by bank authorities.

• By Pamela Raghunath, Correspondent
• Published: 17:34 July 23, 2010

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• Image Credit: Gulf News

Mumbai: The Maharashtra government is all set to auction off 50,000 acres of land of 3,000 farmers in the suicide-prone Vidarbha region to recover unpaid rural bank loans.

"This is a cruel turn of events for farmers who have faced successive crop failures and who have had the misfortune of not being covered under the mega central and state government loan waiver schemes only because their land exceeded two hectares," Kishor Tiwari, who heads an organisation representing farmers, the Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti, told Gulf News on telephone from Nagpur.

He says the farmers are up in arms against this move to recover their land, house and belongings and flays the government that has defensively stated that there will hardly be any small farmers on this list of defaulters. "Farmers," he says, "are taken aback by the government's version that they were willfully defaulting, hoping for yet another round of waiver schemes. The government's attitude is ‘it is time some action was taken against them.'"

Auctioning off land will begin in Yavatmal, Akola, Washim, Wardha, Amravati and Buldhana in western Vidarbha with full police protection from July 23 onwards, it was decided by bank authorities. District collectors have been asked to monitor the recovery process, said Tiwari.

The Land Development Bank (LDB) officials are expected to auction off the land of farmers who have not been able to repay the loans totalling Rs250 million taken before 1997. Officers have been warned that those who fail to follow the orders will face stern action on or before July 31, 2010.

"This is the recent order issued by Subhash Mane, Managing Director of LDB. The state government-owned bank was liquidated due to huge losses. Farmers are at a loss to understand why the government is so keen to recover this amount which is miniscule compared to the Central and state government loan waivers of Rs710 billion and Rs62 billion respectively."

What is worrying is that no local politician, legislator or MP from political parties is willing to listen to the distress of farmers. The VJAS has urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for his intervention failing which another spiral of suicides by farmers will begin, says Tiwari. "Our organisation is also filing a public interest litigation in the court to stop this forceful recovery."