Launching a frontal attack on Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, YSR Congress party president Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy on Monday said that Mr. Naidu had reneged on all poll promises made to farmers. The TDP government’s apathetic attitude in dealing with issues relating to farmers had left them in a miserable condition.
Mr. Reddy on May Day launched a two-day ‘rythu deeksha’ to highlight the problems being faced by farmers, at a venue two km from the Asia’s largest chilli yard.
Market vagaries
Touching upon issues relating to the crisis in farming, fuelled by a steep fall in prices, he said that farmers continued to face the brunt of market vagaries, natural disasters and fluctuations in volatile global markets.
“But this government, instead of coming to the rescue of farmers, had added to their misery. Mr. Naidu had failed to disburse input subsidy of ₹4,394 crore for three years. No one knows what happened to his poll-eve promise of creating a market stabilisation fund of ₹5,000 crore. It has become a habit for Mr. Naidu to make a promise and break the trust of people later,’’ Mr. Reddy said.
Reminding the Chief Minister that he had demanded that the report on farm reforms headed by former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda in 2010 be made public, Mr. Reddy said that Mr. Naidu now pretended that he had never known about the report and about the recommendations of agriculture expert M.S. Swaminathan.
The report submitted in 2010 had advocated sweeping reforms in agriculture, encouraging private investment in agricultural marketing infrastructure and ending the monopoly of agricultural marketing committees.
Flays support price
Mr. Reddy also slammed the recent State Government’s price support scheme for chilli farmers and said that it had only benefited the commission agents. The scheme, which envisaged a support price of ₹1,500 over the prevailing price was full of loopholes, Mr. Reddy said.
“What benefit will the farmer get if the government says that the scheme is only for chilli produce which fetches below ₹8,000 per quintal? The farmer gets support for only 20 quintals. Instead, the government could have procured chilli through Markfed, a move which would have ensured competition among private players,’’ Mr. Reddy said.
