Andhra Pradesh is heading for a huge agrarian crisis despite the tall claims by the State government, YSR Congress Party farmer’s wing president M. V. S. Nagireddy has said.
Addressing a press conference at the party’s district office here on Friday said Mr. Nagireddy said that several factors that included lack of money to buy inputs, reduction in availability of water and last but not the least lack of remunerative prices for their produce were pushing farmers into a severe crisis, he said. He wondered why Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu was advising bankers not to give gold loans to farmers. He asked in what capacity the Chief Minister was making such recommendations to banks. Nothing short of a parliamentary Act could prevent bankers from giving gold loans to farmers, he said. The Principal Secretary was on the other hand contradicting the Chief Minister by telling the bankers that farmers were resorting to suicide because the banks were not giving them loans.
The Chief Minister was ordering law enforcement officers to invoke the PD Act to curb trivial crime, but was not suggesting the same for persons involved in sale of adulterated agricultural inputs even though they were affecting several lives.
Mr. Nagireddy said that onion crop had been raised in 30,000 hectares in the State, but farmers were being forced to dump it on the road side because there were not getting remunerative price. The situation was the same with tomato farmers. While 50 per cent of the mandals in the State were experiencing drought, the State government had not even written a letter to the Centre appraising it of the pathetic situation. Spurious seed was another factor that was affecting the farmers.
