Speaker: GattuRamachandra Rao -Mar2,2012

YSR Congress Party on Friday demanded the State Government to hold elections to cooperative societies, which serve as a backbone to farmers, and refrain from emulating TDP government by running the administration with special officers and ex-officio members.
“The twin recommendations of Vaidynathan Committee that cooperatives should have government patronage and elected representatives should be followed in the true letter and spirit,” party spokesperson GattuRamachandra Rao told reporters here.
TDP government under N Chandrababu Naidu had demoralised cooperative sector resulting in 18 of the 22 Cooperative Central Banks becoming defunct and farmers running into trouble as they could not get proper loans, he said.
Breathing life into cooperative sector, YSR revived the set up by bringing in fresh funds into the cooperative banks and won back the confidence of farmers with the revival of cooperative sector.
“The Congress government has put the clock back and is toeing the TDP path. It has postponed the elections to cooperative bodies and trying to avoid farmers as it cannot face the farmers,” he said and demanded that the twin recommendations of Vaidynathan Committee should be implemented.
TDP, being the main opposition party, has never raised the issue as both Naidu and Kiran Kumar Reddy have nothing to speak about their contribution to farming community and cooperative societies. The no confidence motion moved by TDP was publicised as being on farmers’ issue, but in reality TDP has no love for agriculture and farmers, he said.
Naidu, who increased the membership fee manifold, worked as an agent of World Bank and recovered the interest in full from farmers, while YSR had waived loans, he said.
The pre-2004 and post-2009 scenarios are both same and have the same philosophy and cooperatives flourished and farmers were happy only during the intervening period, he said.
“YSR Congress Party demands the State Government to hold elections to cooperative bodies immediately,” he said.

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