Lok Sabha Debates
Issue Regarding Plight Of Coffee Growers In Karnataka. on 23 September, 2020
Seventeenth Loksabha an> Title: Issue regarding plight of coffee growers in Karnataka.
SHRI PRATHAP SIMHA (MYSORE): Sir, thank you for allowing me to throw light on the plight of the Karnataka coffee growers.
My State, Karnataka, accounts for 70 per cent of coffee production in India. This contribution is achieved by 3,50,000 coffee growers, out of which 98.5 per cent of the coffee growers are small and medium scale growers. However, since 2016, the entire coffee-growing area from Coorg, Hassan to Chikmagalur is in doldrums because of droughts, floods and landslides.
We had severe drought in 2016 and 2017. For the last three years, we have been reeling under floods and landslides. My constituency, Coorg, alone has lost over 3,000 hectares of fertile coffee land. Now replantation is not possible because the fertile surface land has been washed away. Whatever the little relief we get under the NDRF is not sufficient.
Therefore, I urge the Government, especially, the hon. Finance Minister, Shrimati Nirmala Sitharaman, who also represents Karnataka in Rajya Sabha, and the hon. Commerce Minister, Piyush Goyal Ji, who was in-charge of Karnataka BJP, knows our problem, to give heed to our reasonable three demands. I do not expect the Government to waive off the loan. …(Interruptions) Sir, I will finish it in another 30 seconds.
I expect the Government to at least waive off the interest on crop and term loans, restructure the term and crop loans with reduced interest rate and with a two-year moratorium period, and also not to link the CIBIL score of coffee growers with their crop loans. Thank you.