Former Minister and senior Congress leader Marri Shashidhar Reddy has demanded a white paper on the losses suffered by farmers due to nature’s fury, and the funds allocated by the Central and the State governments for their relief.
At a press conference here, he said it is strange that the government talks about Rythu Bandhu every time farmers suffer huge losses due to damage to crops in floods. The State government has estimated losses to the tune of ₹1,339 crore in the recent rains but the Central teams are yet to even look into the reports.
Mr. Reddy said there is no planning from the government in tackling natural disasters and that the State Disaster Management Authority (SDMA) has not met even once in the last 8 years. The SDMA has to be presided over by the Chief Minister -- but not even once the meeting was held, he alleged.
Meanwhile, All India Kisan Congress vice president M. Kodanda Reddy said the UPA government had always come to the rescue of the farmers during rains and floods and that it used to reimburse every paisa spent by the State governments during the calamities. In the present government, there is hardly any such support, he alleged.
He said crops in 25 lakh acres in Telangana suffered with motors being washed away and fields turning into sand dunes. But Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao did not even reveal the actual losses even after his aerial survey. He said the Congress teams were not allowed to meet the Central teams deputed to assess the losses.
He asked why did the government seek just ₹1,000 crore when the loss was about ₹1,400 crore. The losses were disastrous in the sense that the farmers cannot go for fresh crops for the next two years with the fields damaged heavily. The losses in road damages is around ₹490 crore, he said.
Telangana Kisan Congress president Anvesh Reddy also spoke on the occasion.
