Agriculture Minister Pocharam Srinivas Reddy and Irrigation Minister T. Harish Rao warned officials to provide correct figures regarding farming activities else be ready to face serious action.
Participating in review meeting held here on Friday, they said that improper compilation of figures by different departments has been creating problem for the Government at the State-level.
“Can you tell the farm land available in the village you are working? What are the crops that were sown and how much is the acreage? Have you visited those fields?” were the series of questions posed by Mr. Harish Rao to the village revenue officer, agriculture officer and irrigation officer and each officer gave a different figure sometimes contradicting each other.
The presentation of such contradictory figures makes the planning difficult, he explained. Further, it gives scope to the insurance companies to take advantage of showing less land under cultivation and paying low insurance amount when there was a loss, the Minister added.
The Agriculture Minister expressed displeasure at the mismatch in figures supplied by the officials regarding required quantity of seeds and the area that can sown with those seeds. “Which figures should we trust and make our plans? Why there is lack of coordination among various departments? Are you contributing figures by visiting the field or just cooking them up?” he asked adding that submission of wrong figures for the next season would be not be tolerated and asked officials to prepare details before March 31, 2017.
Both the Ministers stressed the need of better coordination among various departments in preparing the data which would be helpful for better planning in future.
Mr. Harish Rao also directed the Joint Collector to hold a meeting with sugar factories and fix the price of sugar cane.
