Telangana Govt apathy is cause of Enumamula protests

State’s negligence towards farmers leading to frequent protests at Enumamula: Opposition leaders

Warangal: The leaders of Congress, BJP and TDP in the district have come down heavily on the TRS government for failing to address the issues of farmers and ensuring profitable price.

The Opposition party leaders held the State government responsible for the frequent protests by farmers over lack of profitable price for chilli, red-gram and others.

Addressing a press conference in Warangal on Friday, the city Congress working president Rajanala Srihari demanded the government purchase chilli and red-gram through Markfed.

Prior to the kharif season Agriculture Minister P Srinivas Reddy and department officials told farmers to take up pulses and other crops instead of cotton. Going by their advice, the farmers have taken up red-gram and chilli on large extent of land but they were not being offered a good price, he said.

During Congress regime, chilli farmers were offered Rs 10,000 to Rs 13,000 per quintal but now the traders forcing the farmers to sell the produce as low as Rs 2,500 to Rs 3,500 per quintal. As a result they were not even able to recover the labour costs.

“For the past three months the farmers at Enumamula market are agitating over poor price offered different agriculture produce. But the Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, Irrigation and Marketing Minister T Harish Rao have not taken any measure to address their issues,” Srihari complained.

He alleged that the traders and cold storage owners have colluded and avoiding farmers saying there was no space in the storages. The district administration should immediately direct the cold storage owners to allow farmers to stock their produce, he demanded.

In a statement, the BJP Warangal Urban district president Rao Padma accused the State government of intentionally failing e-NAM system introduced by the centre. It has become a practice for TRS leaders like B Vinod Kumar to make centre responsible for the issues on which the state has to take initiative. The government should immediately take steps to address chilli farmers, she demanded.

On the day, the TDP senior leaders Revuri Prakash Reddy, Seetakka, G Satyanarayana Rao along with few Left wing leaders have staged a dharna at Enumamula market protesting against the government’s alleged negligent attitude towards the farmers.

Later they met the Market Committee Chairman, K Dharmaraju and asked him to ensure chilli stocks stored at cold storages. The chairman said all cold storages in Warangal were full and steps were being taken to send the produce to storages in Hyderabad.