Farmers in distress: YSRCP

Slamming the TDP government for ignoring agriculture sector, YSR Congress has demanded that the State has failed to provide much needed support to farmers in distress in the khariff season.

“There has been scarcity of fertilizers and the state could not provide water in the Krishna delta and the farmers were unable to get water in an extent of 1 lakh acres in the Krishna delta,” YSRCP Farmers’ Cell Convener MVS Nagi Reddy told reports here on Monday.

The loan waiver has been still a mirage and the eligibility norms have been changing from time to time. While it was waiver of total agriculture loans during electioneering, after assuming power TDP has set up Kotaiah Committee and confined the scheme to crop loans and now it is still mellowed down by deleting horticulture from the list.

The percentage of agriculture operations in Andhra Pradesh is less than that in Telangana state as the farmers are in utter confusion about the loan waiver, he said.

“Despite all the restrictions, not a single farmer could get any loan waived. The farmers are unable to get loans from banks as they have become defaulters as they believed that Chandrababu Naidu will waive all loans after coming to power.

They have been deceived and are a dejected lot now,” he said. The State should increase the MSP rate as per the Swaminanthan Committee recommendations, he said.