Date:18/03/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/03/18/stories/2007031804290500.htm

Karnataka - Bidar

KRRS unhappy with State budget

Staff Correspondent

Bidar: The Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha has criticised the State Government's budget as "showing only lip sympathy" to farmers. The KRRS State unit president Basavaraj Tambake said the coalition Government had failed to understand the problems of farmers.

Plans of loan and interest waiver look good on paper but the Government had promised to waive loans up to Rs. 25,000. The Government should have waived all farm loans, he said.

He said the scheme of waiving interest if farmers pay principal amount was an old trick.

This would benefit only the lending institutions and not farmers.

Irrigation

The Government has not increased the spending on irrigation, he said. Though we welcome the Government's idea to ban arrack, we are not happy with liberalising the wine trade. "What if wine replaces arrack in all the villages?," he asked.

There was nothing in the budget that solves the problems of farmers, he said.