KCR assures farmers over grain market prices

Hyderabad: Farmers need not sell even a single grain of their farming for anything less than the minimum support price, asserted Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao on Sunday.

Addressing members of the farmers’ coordination committees at the regional conference, he said the farmers coordination committee heads can talk to the buyers and commission agents (Adithi dars) in advance and negotiate the rate at which they would be selling their produce in the market.

He informed that representatives of the farmers coordination committees would go door-to-door along with the MLAs and other elected representatives for distribution of farmers investment assistance cheques (Rs 4,000 per acre) in May next. Those who could discharge the responsibility in a disciplined manner would be considered for a trip to Israel to study the agricultural practices in that country.

“The well -to- do farmers are at liberty to forego the crop investment support they are entitled to. The farmers are the symbol of fairness. The membership in the coordination committees are no political appointments. The committees were meant for empowering the farmers, enabling them to get their due. They will not have any bearing on the functioning of the gram panchayats and other local bodies,” he said.

The committees would have to prepare the farmers to adopt and implement the concept of crop colony. They should make the farmers grow crops that are suitable from the agro-climatic conditions of the districts concerned bedsides ensuring regulation of arrivals to the markets to avoid overcrowding that often results in drop in prices.

The Chief Minister said that there has been no government that could strive sincerely for the farmers so far. He said he has urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi also to do something special for the farmers, but nothing concrete was done for them so far.

The Chief Minister assured a tribal farmer from Suryapet Assembly constituency help for his daughter who sought to pursue medicine in the Philippines. Though she got admission in the country, she failed to get the overseas education scholarship and in the process was stranded there.

He said that the farmers would be given transplantation machines on 50 per cent subsidy. “Once all the ongoing projects were completed to give water to the designed ayacut, it would be a tough task for the farmers to get workers for transplantation of paddy. The farm mechanisation would be given a major push by the government. Food processing units would be set up in every Assembly constituency to support the farmers,” he said.