Allocate ₹5,000 crore to overcome farm crisis: Jeevan Reddy

Senior Congress leader and MLC T. Jeevan Reddy has offered to take care of the present procurement crisis if Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao is ready to set aside ₹5,000 crore, and he would ensure farmers of all crops come out of the present crisis safely.

At a press conference here, Mr. Jeevan Reddy said the government should announce some support price to plug the difference between the procurement prices and what the market forces were forcing the farmers to sell at. Even if the entire cultivation in Telangana is taken into account all that government has to spend is ₹10,000 per acre to overcome the difference. And this would not cost more than ₹5,000 crore.

He said KCR seemed to be believing Rythu Bandhu was the panacea for all the ills and he had cheated farmers on farm loan waiver citing Rythu Bandhu. The government doesn’t have any plan on farm loan disbursement. There is no seed subsidy and no plan on interest waiver either.

Mr. Reddy alleged the CM was busy shifting the blame on others while escaping from his responsibility and his promise to the farmers that last grain would be procured. Was it fair for him to leave the farmers in lurch if the Central government was not cooperating, he asked and said this was deceiving the farmers after promising them so much.

The Congress MLC demanded that the Chief Minister reveal his New Delhi tour details to the farmers. “He went there issuing threats to the Centre for public posture and has come back without saying a word. Did he bend the Centre’s neck as challenged or did he bend his own neck,” he asked. “If the CM was sincere about Telangana farmers he would have sat on a dharna at Jantar Mantar.”

Mr. Reddy also hit out at the Agriculture Minister S. Niranjan Reddy and Civil Supplies Minister Gangula Kamalakar saying they were nowhere to be seen while farmers were dying at the market yards and threshing yards with none to give them confidence. Chief Minister sits in Delhi, Ministers have disappeared while Collectors are sitting in their homes, he alleged.

The present crisis before the farmers was selling the paddy of the Kharief season while there is no clarity on procurement in the coming Yasangi season. But both the Centre and the State governments are not willing to give any clarity or confidence to the farmers, the MLC said. “It seems the State government and the rice millers have colluded.”