Severe Drought Situation In The State
- Babu’s words are incredible
- The worst drought in the history of the state
- TDP Government’s indifference towards the problems of the people of the state
- Babu’s negligence towards farmers
YSRCP farmers’ wing president Nagireddy slammed Chandrababu for his indifference towards the drought problem faced by the people of the state. He mentioned that the problem of scarcity of water was now present in the state like never before. He added that the cattle too had no water to drink and no fodder to eat. He condemned Babu for staying silent in spite of such a serious situation.
Nagireddy stated that farmers had shown interest in cultivating in a large amount of land when it rained for the first time on the 20th of June, but the crops withered later when there was not enough rain. This had resulted in reap of only 50% of the crop. Later when cyclone had hit in November, the whole crop in Godavari districts was affected. In Rayalaseema districts, 63% of peanut crop had been cultivated but half of it had perished, with the rest of the crop having low quality. With complete desiccation of crops, there had also been scarcity of fodder for the cattle in the state. Ground water in Krishna Delta had gone down and bore wells had become useless. The quantity of water in River Krishna this year held the lowest record in the history, mentioned Nagireddy.
He questioned Chandrababu what had happened to his bragging that he would make Ananthapuram a drought-free district. He mentioned that 5 lakh people had migrated to Bengaluru, Chennai and Kerala from Ananthapuram district alone. Nagireddy mentioned that certain newspapers had published news about migration of thousands of people from Kuppam constituency of Chittoor district. He slammed Chandrababu for boasting different things in different places. Babu bragged to build a capital city of international standard in the capital, to take Narasaraopet to the top 10 positions in world level when he went there, to make Nellore city another Singapore when he spoke there, to make Tenali a better place than Singapore when he went there and to make Andhra University the best university in the world when he visited it. Nagireddy complained that Chandrababu only knew how to boast depending on the situation.
He demanded to know why migrations were happening from Ananthapuram if CM Chandrababu’s statement was true about the district being industrially developed. Nagireddy said it was ridiculous of Babu to have announced that Congress Party would take care of Rs.1100 crore input subsidy to be paid to the farmers. He questioned why Chandrababu was hesitating to put pressure on the centre to get the funds regarding crop loss. Nagireddy questioned how money was available to hike the salaries of MLAs but not for paying compensation to farmers. He criticised that Babu knew nothing but to repeatedly boast about making the state a wonderful place with the capital city and the Pattiseema scheme.
Nagireddy mentioned that Telangana Government had put interest in drinking and irrigation water projects in view of drought and had called for Rs.30,000 crore tenders, while Chandrababu was least concerned about drought. He cautioned that Rayalaseema was going to take a severe blow in the form of Palamuru Raithu Mudra Scheme. Nagireddy slammed the Government for not giving the input subsidy that the farmers deserved and for not creating fair price for the cultivated crop. He complained that Babu’s promise for implementation of proposals of Swaminathan committee was false. He reminded that even PM Narendra Modi had stated that he would pay 50% extra amount over the produce.
Nagireddy expressed his agony about the impending loss the state of AP would face due to the irrigation projects to be constructed by Telangana. He mentioned that the Government of Telangana was sanctioning Rs.1 lakh for vegetable crops and questioned Babu’s actions regarding the same. Nagireddy criticised that Chandrababu was behaving like the CM of only TDP and suggested that he took the responsibility of the whole state as the CM.