Crop loss in rains: Bandi Sanjay asks Telangana BJP cadre to help farmers

HYDERABAD: Bandi Sanjay Kumar, the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) Telangana unit president, urged party leaders and cadres on Tuesday to help farmers who had suffered serious crop losses owing to unseasonal rainfall and hailstorms in recent days.

The BJP president urged district BJP presidents, senior leaders, and BJP Kisan Morcha leaders to conduct field tours in the next couple of days to collect information on various crop losses during a teleconference with them.

"Let us submit a representation to the district collectors on assistance to the affected farmers in the next two days, and if the government does not respond, let us intensify our agitation," he urged.

According to Sanjay, the farming community across the state suffered enormous losses as a result of the unseasonal rainfall and hailstorm. "In many places, crops that were about to be harvested were washed away by rain."

Farmers who spent an additional Rs 20,000 per acre on crops this year suffered greatly as a result of the hailstorm," he remarked.

He said the plight of tenant farmers was unexplainable. They took the land on lease by resorting to heavy borrowings, but were now in deep distress due to crop loss. The farmers are being compelled to die by suicide due to crop loss days before harvesting and their inability to repay the debts.

The BJP president chastised KCR for failing to keep his commitment to give Rs 10,000 per acre to farmers who had lost crops owing to unseasonal rainfall. "However, he has yet to pay a single penny to the farmers," he charged.

He claimed that if the government had established procurement hubs on schedule, 30-40 percent of farmers would not have lost their harvests. As there was an inordinate delay in opening the procurement centres, the harvesting got delayed as a result of which the crops were washed away in hailstorm, he said.

Sanjay also appealed to the party leaders and cadres to celebrate the 100th episode of Mann Ki Baat being held by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on April 30. “It should be celebrated in a festive atmosphere. We shall install big television screens in each of 100 centres in each assembly constituency to see that all sections of people would view it,” he said.

Sanjay said all the party functionaries should submit the details of the Booth Swashakteekaran Abhiyan programmes taken up till now to the party office by Wednesday.