Congress Holds Protest Seeking Paddy Procurement By Centre

The Congress today held a massive protest in the city demanding that the state and union governments immediately procure paddy from the farmers of the state.

The party held a rally from the Public Gardens to the Agriculture Commissioner's office.

TPCC chief A Revanth Reddy, CLP leader Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, MP N Uttam Kumar Reddy, MLA Seethakka, senior party leader Damodar Rajanarasimha and others took part in the protest rally.

Speaking on the occasion, Revanth Reddy said that the condition of the paddy farmers had turned vulnerable. He said that lakhs of quintals of paddy had been damaged due to untimely rains, and that farmers were committing suicides in minister K T Rama Rao's own Assembly constituency Sircilla. He also alleged that the millers of the state were looting the farmers.

However, both the union and the state governments were resorting to just blaming each other to escape their respective responsibilities to the come to the rescue of the farmers, he said. Paddy was in the list of the 13 crops for which the union government had announced a Minimum Support Price, but it was refusing to buy it now. And the state government was able to procure only 11 lakh metric tonnes of paddy so far, and only Rs. 116 crore had been paid to the farmers instead of Rs. 2,100 crore, Revanth Reddy said.

He also claimed that the 4,743 paddy procurement centres that had been opened by the authorities were just a meaningless statistic.

CLP leader Bhatti Vikramarka asked the state government why problems which had not been witnessed during the rules of previous governments had cropped up in the present government's rule. He also expressed surprise at why the state government, which had the responsibility to procure the paddy, was staging a dharna instead on the issue.

He alleged that neither government procuring the paddy was a conspiracy to help the corporate companies of the country.