Farmers from Amaravati capital region, who are delighted with the Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announcing capital gains tax exemption in his budges speech, called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi at New Delhi yesterday, felicitated him and conveyed their heart-felt thanks. Moreover, they also appealed to the Prime Minister to extend the tax exemption period from two years to 10 years.

Though, the Prime Minister was remained non-committal on extending the time for a decade, responded positively and assured to consider the issue. As many as 85 farmers from the capital region along with Union Minister of State for Science and Technology YS Chowdary, Guntur MP Galla Jayadev and Ministers reached the national capital to felicitate him only.

They also thanked and felicitated Union ministers Arun Jaitley and M Venkaiah Naidu. Though, the farmers, who offered lands for the construction of capital city under Land Pooling Scheme expressed happiness over getting the capital gains tax exemption, however, sought to extend the time limit from two years to 10 years as their lands will get more demand once the development activities pick up in Amaravati.

It may be mentioned here that when the farmers took the issue to the notice of Guntur MP Galla Jayadev, he assured them of taking the issue to the notice of the Centre and also suggested to the farmers to visit the national capital for thanking the Centre for announcing the tax exemption and also to seek extension of the same.

The farmers are accusing that as the present proposal of extending tax exemption benefit only for two years, it forces them to dispose their lands to the advantage of corporates at a throwaway price. Most of them are of the view, their land value would be multi fold if they could wait for some more years, by the time infrastructure and other development activities pick up in the region.