Kamlabai breaks down as she speaks to Aiyar at the meeting at Waifad near Nagpur. Picture by Aniruddha Singh Dinore

Waifad (Vidarbha), March 2: Union minister Mani Shankar Aiyar today tried to douse Vidarbha’s anger at the two-hectare ceiling on full loan waivers, promising farmers he would carry their “voice” to Delhi.

“Farmers with more than two hectares are disappointed. I assure you I will take your voice to New Delhi. It is essential that the government rethink the decision,” the panchayati raj minister told villagers in Waifad, Wardha, as he toured the suicide belt.

Some 18-19 lakh of Vidarbha’s 35 lakh farmers own more than two hectares and, therefore, according to a budget scheme, can only get a 25 per cent loan waiver instead of a complete write-off.

Over 4,000 farmers killed themselves in the region since 2004 and millions are debt-ridden.

Aiyar, in Nagpur for a panchayati raj conference, travelled to villages such as Kolzeri, Bodhbadhan (both in Yavatmal) and Waifad today to gauge Vidarbha’s reaction to the waiver announced on Friday.

Realising the farmers’ unhappiness, he told them the scheme was merely a “proposal” that needed to be ratified by Parliament two months later.

“It is possible to change this proposal. If your MPs raise these issues in Parliament, it would be debated in the House. Parliamentary finance and agricultural committees would then look into the demands. It is important that you take your voice to New Delhi,” he told the villagers at first.

But when the farmers persisted with their aggressive questioning about the two-hectare ceiling, Aiyar said he himself would pass their concerns on to the government.

The farmers also complained that the minimum support prices for crops like cotton and soya were too low.

They cited the lack of education opportunities for their children and the absence of industries processing dairy products or soya.

“My husband killed himself. I have little children. We got a crop of only two or three quintals of cotton. We have just one bullock. It’s better that I die, then my children will at least get some money,” said Kamlabai in Lonsavali village, Wardha.

The village’s residents had complained to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh about the support price and other problems in July 2006.

In Mumbai, state Congress chief Prabha Rau, who is from Vidarbha, said the state unit had written to Sonia Gandhi that the two-hectare (4.94-acre) ceiling should be trebled to 15 acres for rain-fed farms in regions like Vidarbha.

Vijay Jawandia of Shetkari Sanghatana, a farmers’ body, said: “The budget has been unjust to the dying farmers of Vidarbha. The NCP (Nationalist Congress Party) advertisement published today promises that farmers in western Maharashtra, who have small landholdings, will even get a waiver on loans of Rs 5 lakh taken for tractors. But a Vidarbha farmer who has 18 acres and a Rs 50,000 loan won’t get it.”

An estimated 22 lakh farmers own less than two hectares in sugar-rich western Maharashtra.

Of Vidarbha’s 16.34 lakh farmers eligible for a full waiver, only 25 per cent are in the institutional credit net and will thus benefit from the scheme.

The waiver helps only if the loan has been taken from a government-backed institution, but most farmers in Vidarbha borrow from moneylenders at the start of the sowing season to buy seeds.

However, agriculture minister Sharad Pawar has asked farmers not to repay unauthorised moneylenders.

The NCP’s full-page ad, headlined “Promises Fulfilled”, contains small photographs of Sonia and Manmohan but projects Pawar as the man behind the loan waiver.

Starting today, the party will hold a series of rallies in the state’s farmer-dominated regions.