The Central and State governments are grossly neglecting farmers, farm workers and others depending on agriculture and allied sectors and the new controversial farm laws are the result of such ignorance, Congress legislator T. Jeevan Reddy has alleged.
The State government had opposed the new farm laws initially but had changed its stand overnight, Mr. Reddy said here on Monday and sought to know why Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao had made the u-turn after his Delhi visit in December. Perhaps, he did it so to prove his ‘obedience’ to the Prime Minister, he observed.
Speaking to newspersons, he said the Chief Minister had been talking about meeting the loss caused by the implementation of the new farm laws to the farming community but had failed to tell people how he would go about it. He also alleged that in the name of implementing Rythu Bandhu, the State government is denying several other benefits to the farming community such as seed subsidy, farm mechanisation subsidy and others.
The government also failed to provide relief to farmers on the issue of crop loan waiver to the tune of ₹1 lakh per farmer, as promised before the December 2018 Assembly elections, as only ₹25,000 of it had been written off so far. He demanded that the government incentivise cultivation of super fine varieties of paddy as the farming community had been incurring loss of ₹4,000 to ₹5,000 per acre compared to raising regular varieties.
Further, the Congress leader and former minister alleged that the State government had stopped extending subsidy for farm mechanisation for the last two years and had removed 450 horticulture extension officers working on contract basis -- unable to pay salaries to them. He also pointed out that ₹2,000 sanctioned by the Centre for implementation of horticulture mission did not reach farmers as the State government had failed release the matching grant of ₹500 crore.
Turmeric board
On the issue of turmeric board, the Congress leader accused both the BJP and TRS of deceiving the farming and trading communities. In support of turmeric farmers demands of setting up board and announcing support price, he would sit on a day-long protest at Armoor on January 30.
He also demanded linking of agricultural works with national rural employment guarantee scheme to provide some relief to farmers from the increasing cost of cultivation, particularly on the labour component.
