Karimnagar: Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao on Thursday demanded the Centre link the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) with agriculture, and increase the minimum support price (MSP) for all crops in order to help farmers. He also said farmers and the Centre should each pay 50 per cent of wages to agricultural labourers. Mr Rao was addressing a public meeting at Indiranagar in Shalapalli village in Huzurabad mandal where he officially launched the Rythu Bandhu scheme, and distributed cheques and pattadar passbooks to farmers from Dharmarajupalli village.
“All our initiatives launched in Karimnagar district have been successful since our days of Telangana movement. The schemes are also going to change the future course of the country,” the he said. Mr Rao said the government has obtained Rs 6,000 crore in cash from the RBI for Rythu Bandhu, and added that TS has pioneered the implementation of various schemes, and the ongoing projects will bring one crore acres of land under ayacut.
“We are making all out efforts to utilise water from the Godavari as Telangana is entitled to 950 thousand million cubic feet (TMC) water from Godavari,” the CM said. He added that land, water, investment and higher MSP are needed for better agriculture and his government was trying its best to provide them to farmers, “fighting the Prime Minister to increase MSP”. He added that from June 2, land registrations can be done online after land records purification, which will come as a relief to both purch-asers and sellers. He said there are 141 registration offices and tahsildars in 141 mandals that will act as sub-registrars, and the updated land transaction can be seen on Dharani website.
Mr Rao also made it clear that the government will not consider tenant farmers as land-owning farmers and added that a landowner can lease his land to any tenant farmer and may change tenants over the seasons. He said maintaining records of tenant farmers was not the duty of revenue officials and added that the transaction was between a land-owning farmer and a tenant. Quoting figures, he said out of a total of 2.90 crore acres, 2.38 crore acres are verified and 1.40 crore acres is conducive for agriculture.
As an allied issue, he mentioned various welfare schemes and their successful implementation and said there will no shortage of power as the state will generate 800 megawatts from the Kothgudem power plant. He also announced that the state will launch welfare schemes for the poor irrespective of caste and religion, and criticised Congress leaders for their opposition to the government, alleging they did not work for people's welfare when their party was in power in undivided Andhra Pradesh. Finance Minister Etela Rajender requested Mr Rao to sanction Rs 500 crore for development in the old Karimnagar district. Mr Rao in his speech announced the grant.
