AP Govt urged to help ryots, farm workers hit by drought

Ongole: The CPM, CPI, Jana Sena and other parties organised a rasta roko on the bypass road in Ongole on Friday and demanded that the government initiate steps to save farmers and farm workers who had faced problems due to drought conditions. 

CPI State secretary K Ramakrishna, CPM State secretary P Madhu, CPM East Prakasam secretary P Anjaneyulu, CPI district secretary ML Narayana and other leaders participated in the rally and rasta roko in Ongole.

They said that the farmers in the district were suffering due to drought for the last four years. Though the government announced almost all mandals as drought-hit, it didn’t take any effective drought mitigation steps to help the farmers.  

They demanded that the government should recognise the crop owners instead of land owner as a farmer to help the tenant farmers and announce Rs 25,000 as compensation to those who lost their crop due to the non-release of water to NSP canal and drought conditions in the district. 

They also demanded that the government should announce Rs 6,000 per month as drought pension for six months to the families of farm workers as they lost their livelihood.

They demanded that the government release Rs 10 crore for each mandal for drought-relief works and also demanded the government to provide 200 days of work per year with Rs 300 as wages to the MGNREGS workers.