The winter session of the State legislature will begin in Belagavi in north Karnataka from Monday, but the people of the region feel that their most pressing issues always get ignored.
North Karnataka has the second largest arid region in the country, after Rajastan. However, less than 10% of the farmland is irrigated.
Increasing that area is the responsibility of governments, said Vijay Kulkarni, president of the Kalasa Banduri Horata Samiti.
He wants the session to pass a unanimous resolution to bring the riparian States together and hammer out a solution. Gaibu Jainekhan, trade union leader, said there should be public procurement of farm produce, law to ensure prompt payment of sugarcane arrears to growers, and a relief package for weavers from Bagalkot and Belagavi districts.
Jowar in PDS
Shivanand Hosur, Dalit Sangharsh Samiti activist, said MLAs from north Karnataka should join and protest against the State government’s inability to include jowar, the staple in the region, in the subsidised foodgrains distributed through fair price shops.
“People should be able to eat local foodgrains. Rice is not the staple of north Karnataka. This demand is 50 years old, but no government has fulfilled it,” he said.
The expansion of Horticultural Producers’ Co-operative Marketing and Processing Society Ltd. to north Karnataka remains an unfulfilled demand, said Ramappa Gunjal, a horticultural farmer from Belagavi.
Increasing industrial investment in Bombay Karnataka and Hyderabad Karnataka and setting up micro-clusters in taluks to promote small and micro industries ought to be priority, said B.G. Shetkar, member of the State federation of chambers of commerce and industries.
