10,000 Quintals Of Paddy Drenched

The farmers of Karimnagar were hit yet again by nature's fury and the government's refusal to act upon the storage of the paddy grains reaped during the Rabi season.

The farmers whose paddy was piled at the grain purchase centres lamented that upto 10,000 quintals of grain was drenched by the unseasonal rains that hit parts of the state on Tuesday.

The non-availability of plastic grain pile covers and lack of storage space within the grain purchase centres resulted in the exposure of paddy to rainfall.

With heavy restrictions placed upon the export of rice grains, the grain purchase centres across the state are pre-occupied with the produce of the Kharif season, and the lakhs of tonnes of paddy grains reaped at the end of the Rabi season have no takers.

YSR Congress Party President and MP Y S Jaganmohan Reddy, Telugu Desam Party (TDP) President N Chandrababu Naidu, Lok Satta Party President Dr. Jayaprakash Narayan and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader M Venkaiah Naidu are among those who conducted protests, rallies and other events to draw the attention of the government to the plight of the farmers.

All their efforts, and the requests made by various hapless agriculturists through the media, have failed to evoke a positive response from the government.

Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy responded to the demands of the politicos and the farmers by making hitherto empty promises of ensuring that the farmers get the Minimum Support Price (MSP) for their produce, and deploying IAS officers to affected areas to take stock of the situation.