Even as Chief Minister K.Chandrasekhar Rao disclosed recently that an important announcement that will surprise the world will be made soon for the agriculture sector and farmers in a week, organisations working for the welfare and rights of farmers requested the government to first address the lacunae in the implementation of existing schemes and policies.
While the schemes like loan waiver, Rythu Bandhu and Rythu Bima, among others, which are already in implementation are laudable for their positive provisions, there are many lacunae in their implementation, organisations like Rythu Swarajya Vedika and National Alliance for People’s Movement said calling attention of the government to the shortfalls in the implementation of the schemes.
As a result, the funds under these schemes not only got misused, but they also did not improve the lot of farmers and their families continue to be caught in deep crisis. The genuine farmers cultivating various crops could not come out of debt trap. The reports of National Crime Records Bureau highlighted that there was no let up in farmers’ suicides and these suicides were validated by reports in the media and information compiled under the RTC Act , the RSV and NAPM representatives said.
Government should not confine itself to regulating cultivation of crops but expand and extend the discussion for a comprehensive agriculture policy by involving farmers’ associations, agricultural experts and address the problems of various dimensions raised by them, they said.
The RSV and NAPM wrote an open letter to the Chief Minister on Sunday that before making new announcements and bringing new policies, government first bring out a policy for effective utilisation of natural resources particularly land. Secondly it should focus on protecting the livelihoods of people dependent on agriculture and allied sectors and improve their living standards and consider the impact on climate because of some agriculture policies. “Only when the above three issues are discussed and considered together, good decisions will result. If these issues are considered in isolation of each other, it can lead to disastrous consequences,” said Vissa Kiran Kumar of RSV.
The organisations urged the Telangana government to do the ground work like identification of genuine cultivators in every survey number of agricultural land, comprehensive land survey and correction of farmers’ revenue records completely, address the problems of ‘Sada Bainama’ farmers, extend the Rythu Bandhu, crop loans and crop insurance only to genuine farmers.
They also said Dharani website be made accessible to people with survey number-wise categorisation of dry lands, ayacut lands (Magani/Metta) and implementation of existing laws to identify over 10 lakh tenant farmers or bring new legislations to protect the benefits of tenant farmers and ownership of land owner farmers.
