HYDERABAD: Alleging that Rythu Bandhu scheme was only helpful to rich farmers, Telangana Congress seniors such as TPCC chief N Uttam Kumar Reddy, J Geetha Reddy, S Jaipal Reddy, D Sridhar Babu, Dasoju Sravan and others demanded that the government provide proper MSP and crop bonus to each crop to benefit the farmers in the State along with Rs 4,000 being given under Rythu Bandhu scheme. They said Rs 4,000 per acre being given under Rythu Bandhu scheme was not even a drop to quench the farmers’ thirst. Hence, they demanded that more money be given to each farmer to rescue them from agricultural crisis.
“Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao remained in slumber for four years and completely neglected the farmers. However, with elections next year, he is trying to highlight himself as farmer friendly using wrong statistics and false claims,” TPCC chief Uttam alleged.
In order to substantiate their claim that the amount of `4,000 being given to each farmer per crop per acre under Rythu Bandhu scheme was not sufficient to raise crops, TPCC chief spokesperson Sravan Dasoju made a power-point presentation on the agriculture scale of finance on Sunday. The programme, organised by Kisan Khet Mazdoor Congress, was attended by Uttam and other senior leaders including Shabbir Ali, Geetha Reddy, S Jaipal Reddy, KR Suresh Reddy, Kodanda Reddy, D Sridhar Babu.
Picking holes in the Rythu Bandhu, Sravan said as against the 1.01 crore acres of cultivable land, the State government was distributing cheques for 1.42 crore acres. He sought to know the details of beneficiaries of additional 40 lakh acres of land. Further, he pointed out discrepancies in the exact number of farmers. He said somewhere the government was mentioning 45 lakh farmers while the figure was being mentioned as 58 lakh elsewhere.
“The scheme might benefit only the rich and big farmers. The government gave `Rs 415.15 crore to 17,98,068 farmers, who have one acre of land. Another Rs 877.55 crore has been given to 14,34,187 farmers, who have less than one acre of land. Nearly 56% (32,32,355) are other farmers who got `Rs 1,292.70 crore (or 23% of total amount). Nearly 15% of farmers got 85% of Rythu Bandhu revenue and about 1.5 lakh farmers got only Rs 100 cheques,” he said.
The Congress leader also accused KCR government of causing loss of over Rs 1,10,470 crore to the farmers which includes non-payment of crop losses due to drought, unseasonal rains and other factors. Therefore, on an average, nearly 40 lakh farmers across Telangana had suffered losses of Rs 2,76,250 each. Therefore, after paying `Rs 4,000 to each farmer, KCR government would still owe Rs `2.72 lakh to each farmer, he said.