NALGONDA: Alleging that the Congress government’s reckless decisions, lack of planning, and careless attitude have pushed farmers into a deep crisis and left crops in thousands of acres to wither, state BJP president N Ramchander Rao on Wednesday demanded that the Union government’s help be sought to assess the crop loss.
The BJP leader was speaking to the media at Nagarjunasagar after visiting several villages in the Nalgonda district to hear from the farmers about the water shortage and the condition of their fields.
Stating that the Union government was ready to help Telangana to deal with every crisis, he said: “Telangana should follow Karnataka’s example and seek central help. It should ask for a visit by central teams to assess the crop loss in the state and to pay immediate compensation to farmers.”
Pointing out that farmers who own thousands of acres in Kanagal, Nalgonda Rural, and Chinna Madharam villages completely depend on borewells for cultivation, he said: “The Congress government claims that it is supplying 12 to 15 hours of electricity to agricultural fields. But the farmers are saying they are being supplied only up to five hours of power. Due to frequent power cuts and breakdowns, farmers are forced to watch helplessly as their crops dry up.”
He also slammed Congress leaders Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi for promising a better insurance scheme than the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana during the Warangal Rythu Declaration, only to leave farmers without any insurance cover after winning the elections.
“The previous BRS government ignored the scheme by not paying premiums since 2018. The present Congress government is following in its footsteps by neglecting the farmers and their issues,” he said, adding that it is unacceptable that the government failed to take precautions despite early warnings of a drought due to the El Nino effect.