Nalgonda: Agriculture Minister S Niranjan Reddy on Saturday said the State government has revived the past glory of the agriculture sector and had put an end to migration of people from the rural areas to urban areas in search of livelihood. After inaugurating the new building of Soil Test Centre and Rythu Vedika at Miryalaguda, he addressed a meeting of farmers from surrounding villages.
Explaining the schemes taken up by the State government for the benefit of the farmers, the Minister said Rythu Vedikas and Rythu Bandhu schemes were not being implemented anywhere in the country except for Telangana State. He said Rythu Bandhu scheme was aimed at preventing the farmers from struggling to get fund for cultivation, while Rythu Vedikas would help uniting the farmers and fix price for their crop themselves. Presently, farmers were forced to sell their crops at the prices fixed by the market, he added.
Employees and different associations have buildings and common platforms to interact, but farmers, who are the backbone of the country, do not have such facilities. Keeping this in mind, Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao has taken a decision to set up Rythu Vedikas in the State. The farmers of Telangana would soon become role models for the entire country in agriculture sector, he added.
Reminding that Opposition parties have termed Rythu Bandhu as an election scheme and it would not be implemented after the elections, Niranjan Reddy pointed out that a total of Rs 44,000 crore have been deposited in the bank accounts of the farmers in seven phases proving the Opposition parties wrong. The State government has also paid Rs 2,917.39 crore as premium to LIC towards Rythu Bima scheme till date. About 57,599 bereaved families of farmers, who died, benefited under the insurance coverage and received Rs 5 lakh each family.
He informed that training programmes would be conducted to the farmers in Rythu Vedikas on modern cultivation methods. There was a need to encourage the farmers towards the cultivation of the crops, which have high demand in the market, he added.
He said that Telangana State stood in top position in terms of paddy production by producing three crore metric tonnes surpassing Punjab. The State government was working with a plan to create a market atmosphere where farmers will face no problem to sell crops. Agriculture sector was providing direct and indirect employment to 2.4 crore people in Telangana State.
He questioned as to why the BJP was not implementing the schemes like Rythu Bandhu and Rythu Bheema in the States ruled by their government. He pointed out that farmers were still using diesel engines for bore wells in Uttar Pradesh and 35 lakh diesel engines were being used by UP farmers. The BJP leaders have no moral right to criticise the TRS government on agricultural policies, he added.
Stating Chandrashekhar Rao was a pro-farmer Chief Minister, Miryalaguda MLA N Bhasker Rao said that the State government would soon resolve the issues on assigned lands. He thanked the Chief Minister for sanctioning five new lift irrigation schemes for Miryalaguda Assembly constituency.
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