Extend Rythu Bandhu plan to Podu, tenant farmers: CPM demand

​Khammam: The Communist Party of India-Marxist on Friday demanded that the State government extend the Rythu Bandhu, Farmers Investment Support Scheme (FISS), to Podu and tenant farmers.

Speaking at the party’s district secretariat meeting here, the State Secretariat member Pothineni Sudarshan Rao urged the government to provide Rs 8,000 per acre per annum input assistance to those cultivating Podu and tenant farmers under the Rythu Bandhu scheme.

“With the government restricting the scheme ambit only to pattadars, majority of landowners though they are not real farmers will get the benefit of the scheme. There are about 14 lakh tenant farmers in Telangana State and now they stand to lose the benefit provided by the government although they bear the input costs,” Rao said.

All these farmers belong to Dalit, Tribal and Backward Classes, he added. He threatened to launch a Statewide agitation if the government fails to extend the scheme to tenant, Podu and inam land farmers.

Party district committee secretary Nunna Nageswara Rao said the government which is not providing pattas to Podu farmers under the Forest Rights Act is pushing them away from their land in the name of Haritha Haram.

Referring to the May Day activity, he called upon party cadres to celebrate the occasion on grand note. Senior leaders Bhukya Veerabhdram, Buggaveeti Sarala, Ponnam Venkateswara Rao, Yerra Srikanth, Kalyanam Venkateswara Rao, Bathula Lenin and Macharla Bharathi were among others present.