Opposition Slams TS Government For Ignoring Farmers

Leader of Opposition in the Telangana Legislative Council Mohammed Ali Shabbir today said Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao was focusing only on non-productive activities in the last three years even as farmers were facing water shortage and unable to get bank loans due to the half-baked loan waiver program.

He said that the CM had turned Telangana into the no. 2 state in farmers' suicides.

"Without rains in the last 20 days, crops like paddy, maize and cotton are withering, and a drought-like situation has emerged in the state for third successive year. Though the total crop area is 1.08 crore acres, only 35 lakh acres are under irrigation, of which only 30 lakh acres were sown this year. The agriculture minister himself declared that the situation was alarming, with a 534 TMC deficit in the Godavari, 395 TMC of that shortfall in the Krishna basin alone," he said.

In a scenario like this the Chief Minister was functioning like the Emperor Nero, Shabbir Ali said, pointing out as an example that the Chief Minister's new camp office spread over 11 acres built at a cost of Rs 300 crores was bigger than the office of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 7, Race Course Road, Delhi.

Shabbir Ali also faulted the Chief Minister for taking up with the Prime Minister the allotment of the Bison Polo grounds and the increase of Assembly seats during his recent Delhi trip, rather than discuss promises under the A P Reorganization Act, 2014, not delivered on yet like the Railway Coach Factory, power generation, Bayyaram Steel Factory and so on.

He urged the government to immediately declare more areas as drought-affected and consult the Centre and experts on how to buffet farmers and farm labour from hardships with MNREGA, subsidies and so on instead of holding talks with Karnataka and AP on water issues.

Separately, BJP Telangana president Dr K Laxman called upon the party's Kisan Morcha to prepare for an agitation against the "negligence and failure" of the state government in the agriculture sector.

Speaking at the BJP Kisan Morcha workshop on farmers on Saturday, Laxman alleged that the farmers had been facing severe problems, and it was not proper on the part of the state government to announce that the promised Rs 8,000 would be given in two phases, and from next year.

The announcement was nothing but an effort to derive political mileage in the coming elections, he said.

The BJP chief said that the Narendra Modi government had taken up various programmes and schemes for the benefit of the farmers in the country, but the state government was not implementing these schemes including the Fasal Bhima scheme (crop insurance). He said that 10 lakh farmers would have benefited had the TRS government spent its share of Rs 100 crore last year under the crop insurance scheme launched by the central government.

He said that the central government had also sanctioned funds for 16 projects under the Pradhanmantri Sinchayi Yojana (Prime Minister irrigation scheme), and was extending financial help to other projects, too, but the TRS government was diverting these funds.