Cutting across party lines all the Opposition parties in the Legislative Assembly and Council expressed their disenchantment at what they termed, the Telangana Rashtra Samithi Government’s ‘refusal’ to acknowledge the seriousness of the crisis and come up with immediate steps to grant succor to the farmers.
After a five-day recess, the Telangana Legislature on Tuesday set aside its regular business to take up a short discussion on failure of monsoon and measures taken for welfare of farmers. Members including T. Jeevan Reddy (Congress), Errabelli Dayakar (Telugu Desam) and K. Laxman of the Bharatiya Janata Party spoke at length and underscored the need for Government to take immediate steps to lend confidence to the struggling farmers so that they did not take the extreme step of ending their lives.
Among measures that were much-required, they said, were for Government to take up at one go the much-talked-about loan waiver, ensure crop insurance was released, give fresh crop loans without deducting interest in the beginning itself or collect interest on pending loans. Once fresh crop loans were given, together with quality seed on subsidy, fertilizers and pesticides and assure remunerative prices, there was no way farmers were going to get out of the quicksand of debt burden that was pulling their lives.
Another point that all the three leaders made was about the Government approving the proposal to increase the ex-gratia for a farmer’s suicide to Rs. 6 lakh with retrospective effect from June 2, last year. They regretted that Agriculture Minister Pocharam Srinivas Reddy had in his statement initiating the short discussion on farmers’ issues, said Government was only ‘proposing’ to grant enhanced ex-gratia with effect from the said date. Also, they pointed out that he had only stated Government would try to consider ‘sympathetically’, the demand of loan waiver of the remaining loans at once.
Mr. Reddy stated that Government had taken all steps in providing loan waiver of Rs. 8,336 crore and positioning of seeds and fertilizers well in advance, duly placing buffer stocks for the first time, and quality power supply sans interruption. Government was very much concerned about farmer suicides, he said, and was appealing to them through the Legislative Assembly, not to resort to the extreme step.
KTR's intervention
MIM Floor leader Akbaruddin Owaisi during his 30-minute speech said the Government failed to instill confidence among the farming community, which was distressed and taking recourse to suicides unable to come out of the debt. As the MIM leader continued his tirade against the TRS Government , IT Minister K.T.Rama Rao intervened to remind the opposition member that it was not proper to blame the present regime for the farm crisis when the Chief Minister and others in the Government were serious about finding a solution to the suicides.
Communist Party of India (Marxist) member Sunnam Rajaiah and CPI member Ravindra Kumar said it was time the Government came out with specific strategy to help the farmers.
The House adjourned for the day after the Opposition members speeches and the discussion will continue on Wednesday also.
