Jhansi: Farmers in central India’s Bundelkhand region are not waiting for the loan waiver programme to kick off sometime this week.
They are waiting for the rains.
They have waited for the rains for five years. The ensuing drought has resulted in debts, some of which will be written off by the populist Agricultural Debt Waiver and Debt Relief Scheme, 2008, but if the rains don’t come, the new loans, which the farmers here will become eligible for after the old ones are written off, will end up being unproductive. The farmers will slip deeper into debt and the banks will find that even the new loans have turned bad.
Dry spell: At least 80% of the region’s rural population is dependent on rainfed agriculture and livestock for a living. Photograph: Harikrishna Katragadda / Mint
“This is the fifth year of the drought. The canals are dry and there is nothing called a sowing season. Why are you asking about irrigation and farming when there is no water to drink?” asks Hari Ram of Natthikhera village in Uttar Pradesh’s Lalitpur district.
By 30 June, India would have implemented an ambitious Rs70,000 crore farm loan waiver. Apart from writing off loans of farmers who have been unable to service debt, banks will issue fresh loans to the same farmers. The twin bonanza — freedom from debt and fresh loans — is expected to help clean up the books of banks and provide a fillip to agriculture. Political analysts say the ruling United Progressive Alliance government has come up with the scheme as a way to win votes; five key states go to the polls before the end of the year and elections to the Lok Sabha are scheduled for 2009.
Here in Bundelkhand, though, the loan is far from Ram’s mind. His brothers have migrated out of Natthikhera and become labourers. Ram and others have opted to stay back to earn a living by digging ponds and building roads, under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), a government programme that promises employment to at least one member of poor families.
The land on both sides of the road is dotted with newly dug ponds and wells, waiting for the rains. “I don’t know if this will help, I am only here to dig,” says Ram.
In the Bundelkhand region that is spread across 7.08 million ha and 13 districts — seven in Uttar Pradesh and six in Madhya Pradesh — at least 80% of the rural population is dependent on rainfed agriculture and livestock for a living. The rains haven’t come and irrigation schemes haven’t been efficient.