Broken promise in Dharapuram: farmers say TVK's crop-loan waiver is a maze of slabs, caps and exclusions

On the eve of a by-election in one of Tamil Nadu's farming heartlands, the TVK government's flagship promise to the countryside is unravelling — and the farmers of Dharapuram are saying so out loud. Ramasamy, a senior functionary of a farmers' association which he says owes allegiance to no political party, told The Hindu that the government's repeated changes to the crop-loan waiver scheme had created only confusion among agriculturists and "unnecessarily created false expectations", even as he acknowledged the government had its own constraints. The gap between promise and delivery is stark. The TVK's electoral pledge was a 100 per cent waiver for small and marginal farmers — those holding up to five acres — who had taken loans from primary agricultural cooperative societies, and a 50 per cent waiver for the rest. What the government announced instead was a graded structure: first a full waiver on loans up to Rs 50,000, then a revision offering a full waiver on loans up to Rs 75,000 irrespective of landholding size, a maximum waiver of Rs 75,000 for loans between Rs 75,000 and Rs 1 lakh, and only Rs 35,000 for loans above Rs 1 lakh. The fine print has angered farmers further. Loans sanctioned in March 2026 are excluded from coverage — though, as Ramasamy pointed out, March is invariably the month when the largest number of crop loans are sanctioned. Farmers who repaid their loans up to June 19 have been given no relief at all. All Central and State government pensioners are excluded, a norm Ramasamy says should be replaced with an income limit. And in the western districts, where farmers borrow for milch cows, dairy loans are left out entirely — though, as farmer N. Natarajan argued, animal husbandry and dairy fall squarely within agriculture. Senior government officials looking after policy formulation did not reply to messages sent by The Hindu on the issues raised by the farmers. On the same day the farmers' anger surfaced, the government was forced to reiterate its suspension of overdue crop-loan recovery by cooperative societies, after complaints that societies were still calling borrowers to demand repayment. Farmers can now report violations on the Cooperation Department's WhatsApp grievance number, 98840 00845. But a suspension of recovery is not a waiver — the dues remain. The scheme, announced by Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay on June 16, covers 14.43 lakh farmers at a cost of Rs 5,932.23 crore. Yet delta farmers have staged sit-ins near Tiruchirappalli demanding a complete waiver, and Perambalur farmers earlier protested in black over what they called a betrayal of the poll promise. On October 6, Dharapuram votes. The crop-loan waiver was the TVK's contract with the countryside. The countryside will now say whether that contract was kept.