The State government has pushed the common farmer into a state of distress with its flawed policies and with paltry allocations that are nowhere a match to that made during the previous regime, said Telugu Desam Party (TDP) politburo member and former Minister Somireddy Chandramohan Reddy.
Addressing the district-level convention of the party’s farmer wing ‘Telugu Rythu’ at Srikalahasti on Wednesday, he said the YSRCP government had allocated ₹20,000 crore for the year 2020-21, but spent a mere ₹7,000 crore.
“It is a blatant lie that the government has spent ₹1.28 lakh for the farm sector in three years,” he fumed. He said it was unfortunate that the State was claiming the amount paid to farmers towards procurement of grains as investment into the farm sector.
‘Misleading claims’
“The State said through media advertisements that it had paid ₹43,000 crore for procuring paddy and another ₹7,000 crore towards other grains, claiming it as allocation towards agriculture. Even the amount spent from MGNREGA funds for undertaking repair to canals is shown under the ‘agriculture’ overhead, which is misleading,” he observed.
The former Minister took objection to the false projection of ₹3,411 crore as the amount spent on crop loans during the TDP regime against the actual figure of ₹4,007 crore, which the government had officially announced under RTI.
“The drip and sprinkler irrigation schemes, which had become a hit with farmers during the Chandrababu Naidu regime, are nowhere to be seen today,” he rued.
The party gave a call to the farmers of Tirupati, Chittoor, Annamayya, Nellore and Prakasam districts to attend the ‘Rythu Poru’ scheduled for June 25 in Nellore to declare a war against the ‘anti-farmer’ policies of the State government.
