Excuses on Crop Purchases, Government Pushing Farmers into Crisis: Harish
Harish Rao also accused the government of failing to safeguard Telangana’s water interests and questioned why water was released to Andhra Pradesh despite repeated warnings about water scarcity and the likely impact of El Niño conditions.
Hyderabad: Former minister and senior BRS leader T. Harish Rao on Thursday accused the Congress government of pushing the farming community into further crises. Strongly criticising the decisions taken by the Cabinet on Thursday, he said the government was “systematically undermining Telangana’s farming community through inconsistent policies and anti-farmer decisions.”
Harish Rao, in a statement, said that after reducing the scope of crop bonus payments during the recent agriculture department review meeting, the government on Thursday effectively withdrew from paddy procurement by introducing restrictions under the guise of a ‘Digital Cabinet’ decision, and called it a “serious betrayal of farmers.”
The “Congress government’s destructive creativity is pushing agriculture into crisis through and every new decision is creating fresh hardships for farmers,” he said.
“The Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy is now citing the Centre as an excuse to avoid procurement responsibilities. What are farmers expected to do with their harvested crops? Imposing procurement limits in the name of central quotas will leave farmers at the mercy of private traders and market forces,” he said.
He also accused the government of failing to safeguard Telangana’s water interests and questioned why water was released to Andhra Pradesh despite repeated warnings about water scarcity and the likely impact of El Niño conditions. “Experts warned about the possible impact of El Niño well in advance. Why did the government fail to take preventive measures?” Harish Rao asked.