Congress flays KCR over crop loan waiver promise

Hyderabad: Congress MLC T Jeevan Reddy on Monday lambasted Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao and alleged that the latter was harassing the farmers. Addressing the media at Jagitial, Reddy predicted that it was the last annual Budget for the TRS government. He alleged that the Chief Minister had forgotten his promise of providing crop loan waiver of up to Rs 75,000 to the farmers.

He demanded that the CM should provide fresh loans to the farmers by acting as a guarantor to banks. He mocked that KCR was the only CM who did not attend the meeting of the State level bankers' committee. He said the farmers had cultivated only 50 per cent of the actual annual quantity of the paddy due to the appeal of the CM to not cultivate it and added that the State was getting only 50 lakh metric tonnes of paddy as yield this year as against the actual production of 1 crore metric tonnes.

He said the cultivation of the paddy worth Rs 10,000 crore was reduced in the State this year. He said that the Congress party was ready to extend its support to the CM against the fight with the Central government on the issue of paddy procurement.

He also alleged that the TRS had suspended three MLAs of rival BJP from the recent budget session in order to give it an Opposition party status. He termed that the Union government was an anti-farmer government and alleged that the BJP was a party that supports only corporate companies.

He also demanded that the State government should give Rs10,000 per acre as compensation to the farmers after declaring a crop holiday. He also demanded that the State government provide crop loan waiver of Rs 1 lakh to the farmers in the ongoing financial year.