TRS plenary crowns farmers with sops

Chief Minister and party chief K Chandrashekar Rao says ‘every farmer is a king

Hyderabad: Countering the Opposition charges that the government was ignoring the farm sector and farmers’ suicides were unabated in the State, the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) plenary on Friday proposed a slew of welfare measures for farmers.

Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao said the government which had recently announced it would give Rs 4,000 per acre to farmers for purchase of fertilisers for one crop from 2018 and it had now been decided that the government would give Rs 4,000 per acre for two crops. Horticulture farmers including fruit growers would also be benefitted, said Chandrashekar Rao.The TRS government, the Chief Minister said, wanted that every farmer should become a king, and added that the new scheme would be implemented in the State on the lines of loan waiver scheme.

He said that 99.7 per cent of the farmers had less than 25 acres of land (62 per cent have less than 2.5 acres, 24 per cent have less than 5 acres of land). The way in which every farmer was given loan waiver benefit, all the farmers would be getting benefitted from the fertilizer scheme, he said Stating that even the people who pick iron particles from the bin have an association, Chandrashekar Rao said those who fed us did not have any association.

The Chief Minister stressed on the need for the farmers to get organised. He assured that the government would form village, mandal, district and State level farmers organisations. He said that the government would allocate Rs 500 crore as ‘seed money’ in banks. After the farmers got organised, they would decide the price of the produce, he said. Stating that farmer was becoming enemy of fellow farmer with similar type of produce, Chandrashekar Rao said the farmers would be given training on which farmer should go for which type of crop.

Telangana should become a crop colony for making the farmer king, he said. He said there should be no place for middlemen in the scheme.The Chief Minister said that government appointed 2,112 VAO (village agriculture officers). With this, one agriculture officer would be available for 5,000 acres. These officers would be given laptops and they would assist farmers in cropping and also getting subsidy benefit. Stating that Telangana had become a model for India, Chandrashekar Rao said even NITI Ayog was looking towards Telangana.

Chandrashekar Rao said he would urge the Centre to link NREGA (National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) scheme to agriculture. He passed a resolution taking consent of the plenary. He said he would take up the issue with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Referring to the encouragement the government was giving to the people involved in age-old professions, Chandrashekar Rao said the government would provide assistance to Yadavas, barbers, washermen etc.He listed out various welfare measures of the TRS government.

He said Rs 40,000 crore was being spent on the poor benefitting those who get Aasara pensions to pensions for single women and six kg rice to every individual in the family. The government fought a war in power sector, he added.
“One Chief Minister of undivided Andhra Pradesh with a stick in his hand said there would be darkness once Telangana was formed, but now we are able to provide 9,350 MWs of power. In the coming days, there will be no power cuts in Telangana,” said Chandrashekar Rao.