Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) MLC Kalvakuntla Kavitha lashed out at Nizamabad MP Aravind Dharmapuri accusing him of cheating the turmeric farmers of the district by securing a mere ₹200 per farmer after making a promise of setting up the Turmeric Board.
Revealing the funds sanctioned by the Central Government for turmeric farmers in the last three years, she said that all that Mr. Aravind could get was just ₹1.92 crore for close to one lakh turmeric farmers and that translated to a mere ₹200 per farmer. She said that this data was obtained through RTI queries and added that Mr. Aravind cannot deceive people forever.
Ms. Kavitha, who represented Nizamabad in Parliament from 2014 to 2019, said that for the year 2020-21, a sum of ₹1,18,71,000 was allocated out of which ₹75 lakh was assistance towards boilers and ₹43.71 lakh was for assistance towards turmeric polishers.
Similarly, for 2021-22, a total of ₹74.81 lakh was allocated, and ₹39.73 lakh went towards assistance for boilers, ₹6.58 lakh for turmeric polishers, and ₹15 lakh as assistance towards Silpaulin sheets, ₹10 lakh towards assistance for Spices Producers group in the identified cluster and ₹3.5 lakh for setting up basic quality testing equipment, according to the RTI reply.
The figures reveal that Mr. Aravind has deceived the turmeric farmers with his promise of setting up a Turmeric Board and also securing minimum support prices for turmeric and red jowar in the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, she said, adding that the MP should now keep his promise of resigning and join the people’s movement.
Instead of the Turmeric Board, Mr. Aravind got the Regional Centre of Spices Board in February 2020 to save his face and that was nothing but an office with a few chairs and two persons managing it.
She sought justice and transparency for the turmeric farmers of Nizamabad and asked the BJP to be accountable. The people of Nizamabad would seek an explanation from Mr. Aravind.
