Niranjan Reddy slams Congress leadership

Addressing a media conference at Telangana Bhavan, he said the farmers should be wary of the evil designs of the Congress leaders.

Hyderabad: Agriculture Minister S Nirajan Reddy on Wednesday came down heavily on the Congress party leadership for the scant regard it had demonstrated for farmers at its public meeting at Kolhapur.

Addressing a media conference at Telangana Bhavan, he said the farmers should be wary of the evil designs of the Congress leaders. They would be deprived of benefits extended by the BRS government if the Congress was given an opportunity to make a comeback. The Congress leaders were sounding highly skeptical of the Rythu Bandhu programme, which was considered one of the world’s best pro-farmer initiatives. He recalled that the Palamuru region was deprived of Krishna water by the Congress rulers in the undivided State.

---

“They were now looking at Rythu Bandhu as a wasteful expenditure,” he said, adding that the BRS government had disbursed Rs.72,815 crore of Rythu Bandhu assistance in 11 installments to the farmers. Farmers had received a compensation of Rs 5566 crore under Rythu Bima.

He recalled that the government agencies had purchased 772.92 lakh metric tonnes of grain worth Rs 1.33 lakh crore. The government had also spent Rs 5349 crore restoring ponds and minor irrigation tanks under Mission Kakatiya thus stabilizing the minor irrigation ayacut of 15.05 lakh acres.

The government was providing round the clock power supply to the farmers free of cost spending over Rs 10,500 crore per annum. Over 58 lakh farmers were benefitted by Rs 29,144.61 crore from loan waiver implemented in two installments since 2014.

The efforts made in the direction of supplying genuine and quality seed and fertilizers had paid dividends. Telangana had emerged as model state for seed development.

Promoting new courses in agriculture sciences, the State had set up 11 agriculture and horticulture Colleges during the last ten years. The Congress party will never be able to come to power in Telangana just by indulging in personal accusations.

He said the Congress leaders like Rahul Gandhi seemed to be blind to rapid strides made in different sectors including the farm sector under the BRS rule.