VIJAYAWADA: Telugu Rythu president Marreddy Srinivasa Reddy on Sunday blamed the Jagan Mohan Reddy government for the crisis in the agriculture sector. Its anti-farmer policies are only benefitting ruling party leaders, he said.
He alleged that the ruling party leaders had caused serious losses to both farmers and tenant farmers with their irregularities and now they were shamelessly trying to get the cultivators' support for winning panchayat elections. He further alleged that of the 15.5 lakh tenant farmers, over 14 lakh could not get input subsidy because of the heartless policies of the ruling party.
Addressing a press conference here, Srinivasa Reddy recalled that the Chandrababu Naidu regime had provided bank loans to tenant farmers considering their increasing significance in the protection of agriculture sector. Now they were not having any loan card, insurance cover or input subsidy. He stated that over Rs. 700 crore loss was caused to Nellore paddy farmers through wrong weighing and alleged that when they questioned the irregularities, false cases were filed against Dalit farmers.
Reddy deplored that the Chief Minister has ignored farmers in his Rythu Bharosa programme. He recalled that during the 2017 YSRC Plenary, Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy had promised to give Rs 12, 500 to each farmer but now he was giving only Rs 7,500, which also was being given in a haphazard manner.
The TD leader lamented that the government’s negligent policies had reduced the agriculture growth rate from 11 to eight per cent. He lamented that budgetary allocation for agriculture, which was `8,600 crore during 2018-19, was cut drastically to Rs 5,986 crore for 2019-20.
