HYDERABAD: The Telangana state government is facing the brunt of farmers’ and students’ anger over the issue of paddy procurement and job notifications.
Farmers are blocking roads and staging protests in several districts after the government's paddy procurement drive failed to take off even 15 days after it was announced. On the other hand, the unemployed and students organisations are gearing up for the ‘Million March’ in Hyderabad on November 16 being organised by the Opposition BJP to protest the failure of the state government in releasing job notifications since 2018 even after 1.91 lakh vacancies were identified by the C.R. Biswal-led Pay Revision Commission in December last year.
The student organisations are angry that the government has not issued a single job notification even after Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao making a statement in December 2020 that they will fill 50,000 vacancies in three months. Although it is nearly a year since, there is no initiative on this front.
The holding of the proposed Vijaya Garjana Sabha of the TRS with 10 lakh people in Warangal on November 29 is facing stiff resistance from local farmers who are refusing to hand over their agriculture lands for the public meeting.
The party needs a 600-acre site for the meting and ministers and ruling party leaders are going for site inspections to identify the site but are facing severe opposition.
The government had announced that it would open 6,500 procurement centres to purchase paddy produced in the Kharif (June-September) season on October 18. However, the government could open less than 2,500. Relying on the government's announcement, farmers had stocked their paddy at the procurement centres.
Farmers in a few districts suffered huge losses due to recent rains as this paddy was either washed away or got damaged. Angered at the delay, the farmers are blocking roads and staging protests in undivided Nalgonda, Nizamabad, Medak Mahbubnagar, Warangal, Khammam, Adilabad, Karimnagar districts.
The rank and file of the ruling party who are yet to recover from the recent defeat in Huzurabad bypoll are a worried lot over a host of problems engulfing the party all of a sudden.
