Agrarian crisis hits Telangana: ‘No crop, no bonus’ is this what the Congress Govt wants?

HYDERABAD: Indian agriculture is nothing but a gamble with monsoon. But the Government has to be the guardian for the farmers so that can go ahead plow the fields, sow the seed, and reap the harvest so that others can eat.

“I think the Congress Government is implementing a preplanned agenda to hurt the farming in the State so that there will be a crop failure this ‘Vanakalam’ (Kharif) and the Government doesn’t have to procure paddy and pay Rs 500 bonus that it promised per quintal of paddy,” former Minister G Jagadish Reddy observed.

Jagadish Reddy’s observations came after a video of a distraught farmer in Erkaram of Dubba thanda of Suryapet district went viral on social media. He could be seen asking how he should repay the shop owner who sold him fertilisers, and pesticides, the man who sold seeds and other inputs, and how could he pay the owner from whom he hired machinery when crop on all of five acres had dried up?. "Is suicide my only option?" the farmer said.

Also Read: Young tenant farmer dies by suicide amid increased debts in Vikarabad

The crisis gripped other parts of the State too. A farmer died by suicide in Barampuram village of Talamadugu mandal in Adilabad. Kakarla Asanna (43) took huge loans to cultivate cotton and soya in two acres. However, the crop failed. He resorted to suicide by consuming pesticide.

While dried crops had been a problem in many parts of the State, the recent hailstorm damaged standing crops in Potugal, Gannepalli, and Sevalal Thanda of Mustabad mandal in Karimnagar. Karimnagar former MP B Vinod Kumar visited these villages and consoled the farmers.

BRS demands Rs 10,000 compensation

Farmer Agriculture Minister Singireddy Niranjan Reddy addressing a press conference today, demanded Rs 10,000 compensation per acre for farmers for the failure of their crops. “When we demanded the Government to lift project gates, they lifted political gates. Untimely rains and hail storms damaged crops, but the Government is indifferent towards the farmer's problems,” he said.

He recalled that the then Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao personally visited farmers who were affected by untimely rains in Vikarabad and Warangal districts and declared Rs 10,000 as compensation, while disaster management warranted a payment of Rs 2,000-Rs 2,500, by releasing Rs 13,000 crore on a single day, he said.

He urged the Government to immediately get reports from Adilabad, Siddipet, Siricilla, and Karimnagar districts where thousands of acres were damaged due to untimely rains and save farmers.

“The Congress is dillydallying the release of Rytu Bandhu imposing new conditions. The Congress Government says the scheme is only for 3.5 acres. When demanded the Minister said that he would slap a farmer with a slipper,” he said. He blamed the Government for systematically damaging the agricultural sector.

“While KCR brought reverse migration with his efforts, the Congress Government brought back the pre-2014 situation of the mass exodus of farm labour to Mumbai or Karnataka,” Niranjan Reddy observed.

Wondering why the Government failed to estimate the available water in all reservoirs and started planning for the timely release of water for farming, the former Agriculture Minister said that Congress damaged agriculture in just 100 days.

Reminding the Government that 2.5 crore people in Telangana depend on farming and allied fields, he said that no single Minister ever visited a farmer in distress in the State.