Farmers mum on extending Rythu Bharosa to tenant farmers

Despite Agriculture Minister Thummala Nageshwar Rao’s repeated appeal to farmers for advice on how to extend Rythu Bharosa to tenant farmers, a majority of the farmers skipped the subject.

Karimnagar: Almost all farmers, who expressed their opinion on Rythu Bharosa, avoided tenant farmers and did not give any opinion on whether to extend the scheme to tenant farmers.

Despite Agriculture Minister Thummala Nageshwar Rao’s repeated appeal to farmers for advice on how to extend Rythu Bharosa to tenant farmers, a majority of the farmers skipped the subject.

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To get opinion from farmers about the implementation of the scheme, the cabinet sub-committee on Rythu Bharosa organized a consultation meeting along with the farmers from erstwhile Karimnagar district in a function hall here on Friday.

About 20 to 25 rytus expressed their opinions on how to implement the scheme to ensure maximum benefit to genuine farmers. Except one, no farmer spoke about how to benefit tenant farmers under the scheme.

A farmer from Korutla, Kanakaiah advised the government to give Rs 500 bonus to tenant farmers by avoiding Rythu Bharosa to land owners. So, the tenant farmers, who are actually cultivating crops, would benefit.

Surprisingly, a majority of the farmers expressed their opinion from the ‘Reddy’ community.

All ryots wanted the government to avoid benefit to west lands, hillocks, and real-estate ventures as was done in the past.

They advised the government to fix upper limits between 5 to 10 acres to provide the benefit under the scheme.

A farmer from Gollapalli of Dharmapuri constituency, Nishanth Reddy wanted the government to provide crop insurance facility. Farmers have to suffer loss if there were natural calamities. If there was an insurance facility, they would get compensation for damaged crops, he opined.

An organic farmer from Vemulawada, Kuragayala Srinivas advised the government to provide minimum support price (MSP) to crops. Besides implementing RB by following land ceiling act, corporate farmers should not be provided the scheme, said Sheshibushan Kache from Manthani.

Another ryot wanted the government to link NREGA to agriculture.