The Government should maintain uniformity

28 Nov 2015 4:22 PM

After touring the flood-hit district of Nellore, leader of the opposition Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy turned up in East Godavari district to make a show of support to farmers here whose have been damaged by the rains of the last fortnight. The YSRC president said he would demand the Government to pay the minimum support price for discoloured paddy and wondered why the administration has not bothered to conduct a survey of rain damage in this district yet.

Mr. Reddy visited Chinagollapalem and Balayogipeta near Kothapeta and interacted with farmers who lost their standing crop to the rain. He lambasted the Government for failing to give due attention to farmers’ issues.

“The Government is keen on earning money by selling sand rather than lending a helping hand to farmers in distress. The Chief Minister is not serious about farm issues and that is the reason why he has not interacted with farmers here since the heavy rains last fortnight,” he said.

After listening to farmers and farmer leaders, Mr. Jagan said that though crops have been damaged over an extent of 1.5 lakh acres, officials have declared that it was limited to 18,000 acres.

“This is an instance of the stepmotherly treatment being given by the Government to the farm sector. Since the Chief Minister and the ministers are not taking agriculture seriously, officials are sitting in their offices and writing up reports,” he said, demanding that the State government order a revised study into crop losses.

Observing that there was no uniform package of ex-gratia for farmers, Mr. Jagan said this was nothing but cheating farmers. “The Government should maintain uniformity on ex-gratia payments,” he said.