Farmers’ welfare paramount

Hyderabad: Apparently with an intention to derive maximum political benefit, Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao has entrusted to recently constituted Rythu Samanvaya Samithi (RSS) the work of distribution of cheques relating to crop investment scheme to beneficiary farmers. Under the scheme, the farmers would be paid Rs 4,000 per acre for kharif and an equal amount for rabi.

The Chief Minister, while participating in the Rythu Samanvaya Samithi meeting held at Agriculture University here on Sunday, announced that Nalgonda MP Gutta Sukhender Reddy would be the chairman of the newly constituted body.

To begin with, crop investment incentive is being in the form of cheques to farmers. Later, the farmers would be given pre-paid cards where money would be deposited for rabi and kharif. The state government would allocate Rs 12,000 crore for this scheme.

The CM said that Sukhender Reddy is also a farmer and he spend more time in farms than in Hyderabad. "He has vast experience in agriculture as he has also worked in Panchayat Raj department," he said.

Sukhender Reddy will have his office at Basheerbagh in Hyderabad. His job would be to coordinate with the district and mandal Samanvaya Samithis. The state-level Samanvaya Samithi would have a fund of Rs 6,000 crore to Rs 7,000 crore and this would be used to purchase the farmers' produce.

The Rythu Samanvaya Samithis should help the farmers in getting more remuneration than the MSP declared by the farmers. “The samithis should bring limited farmers to the market and ask the commission agents how much more than the MSP they can give to a crop.

If the agents are not willing to pay to more than MPS, the Samithis should call the State president and he will ensure the farmers get more than the MSP. The commission agents deceive farmers but from now onwards Sukhender Reddy is like a whip for them,” said KCR.

The CM said that Sukhender Reddy’s office would soon have a call center and the farmers can get in touch whenever they feel deceived and this would ensure the farmers get more than MSP.

Stressing the importance of machinery, the CM asked the farmers to go for mechanization. He also assured to provide 50 per cent subsidy to the farmers for the seed sowing machines. He wanted the Samanvaya Samithis to make sure the farmers take out the automatic starters as there is 24-hour power in the state. “There is no question of going back on 24-hour power,” he said.

The Chief Minister, in another decision that might trigger a fresh controversy, justified the appointment of TRS leaders to the district, mandal and village level samithis. KCR said, “This is not a political post but there will be TRS members in the Samithi. These TRS leaders have fought for Telangana for 14 years and they have got the right to be in the samithi.”

In another decision that would please the revenue staff, the chief minister said that they would be paid a months' salary as bonus for cleaning the land records which was a mammoth task. After cleansing, the officials concluded that there was 1.65 lakh acres of land including 20 lakh acres of assigned lands was without any litigation. There is litigation for about two to three lakh acres of land.

The Chief Minister said that the MROs would be given the responsibility of registering lands and if they delay the process, they would be penalized Rs 1,000 per day. This process would begin from March. he pointed out.