The Telugu Desam Party on Sunday requested Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy to use his offices to prevail upon the Cotton Corporation of India to procure cotton directly from the farmers who were affected by cyclone Neelam.
Talking to reporters after submitting a memorandum to the Chief Minister in the Assembly premises, TDP MLAs Errabelli Dayakar Rao, L Ramana and others said that some middlemen were buying cotton from affected farmers at extremely low rates. They said that thousands of cotton farmers in the Telangana region had lost their crops due to cyclone Nilam and therefore, he added, the CCI should be asked to purchase cotton from the affected farmers at market rates.
Dayakar Rao said that due to the ban on the export of cotton, the mills were also not buying cotton from the farmers. He also demanded adequate compensation for the cotton farmers of Adilabad, Karimnagar, Warangal, Nizambad, Medak, Ranga Reddy, Khammam, Krishna and Guntur district whose crops were damaged due to cyclone.
TDP MLAs also asked the Chief Minister to prevail upon upon a private company to pay compensation for the crop losses due to the bad quality of seeds. (INN)