Minister for Agriculture Kanna Laxminarayana has alleged that the farmers have resorted to suicides and some of them have even sold their kidneys to eke out their living due to the neglect of the farm sector by the TDP government.
Ever since, the Congress had attained the power in 2004, the government had given a new fillip to the agriculture sector by announcing free power, waiver of crop loans, increase of minimum support price to the farm produce and many other welfare schemes, he added.
Speaking after inaugurating the ‘Yantralaxmi’, an exhibition of agricultural aids and tools here on Sunday, Mr Laxminarayana said that the government had decided to encourage the mechanization of the agricultural implements in the wake of increase of labour charges. Accordingly, they had allocated Rs.1,000 crore including Rs.500 crore subsidy for the mechanization of the agricultural sector, he added.
ADVERTISEMENT
Claiming that the Congress government had instilled confidence among the farmers, he said that they had provided loans to around one crore farmers through banks when compared to only 40 lakh farmers during the TDP regime. He said that they had been providing interest free loans to the farmers. He said that there was no shortage of seed and fertilizer due to their advance planning.
Minister for Civil Supplies D. Sridhar Babu said that the mechanization of the agricultural implements would benefit the farming community as well as increase the farm produce. He said that they were taking all measures to ensure that the Karimnagar district tops in the agricultural production.
When TDP legislator from Peddapalli, Ch.Vijayaramana Rao alleged that the farmers were suffering during the Congress regime due to non-availability of seed, fertilizer and also erratic power supply,
ADVERTISEMENT
Karimnagar MP Ponnam Prabhakar reacted sharply saying that the TDP had completely neglected the farm sector. He alleged that the TDP government had failed to provide MSP to the farm produce.
Government Whip Arepalli Mohan, Husnabad legislator A.Praveen Reddy, MLC Naradasu Laxman Rao, Collector Smita Sabharwal also spoke on the occasion.
Earlier, the Ministers inspected the stalls of agricultural implements and inquired about its functioning.
They had also visited the Nusthullapur village on the outskirts of the town to inspect the drum-seeder technology plantation of paddy.