Rythu Bandhu to attract attention of nation

​Hyderabad: The launch of Telangana State Government’s prestigious crop investment support programme -- Rythu Bandhu is set to be a major national event on May 10 as a battery of leaders from many states in the country is expected to watch the rollout of the big-ticket farmer-friendly scheme.

Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao is taking enough care to ensure that the event would serve as a launch pad for his national ambitions for which he had already started his work. In the recent past, the Chief Minister met several national leaders and broached his idea of a national federal front with anti-BJP leaders though some of them are not strictly anti-Congress as he wants them to be, since his front also wants to take the Congress by its horns.

The invitations for Rythu Bandhu programme have already been sent to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, DMK working president MK Stalin and MP Kanimozhi from Tamil Nadu, JD(S) leader HD Kumaraswamy from Karnataka, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) leader and former chief minister Hemant Soren and Samajwadi Party (SP) leader Akhilesh Yadav. 

The Janata Dal leader, however, is unlikely to attend the programme in view of Assembly elections in Karnataka on May 12. When KCR met these leaders to discuss his federal front, he invited them to the government's flagship programme and how it had been designed to provide the much-needed succour to the farm community which is in distress by extending Rs 4,000 incentive per acre before the beginning of the agricultural seasons - kharif and rabi in the state. The total number of beneficiaries will be 58 lakh farmers in kharif season.

The state government is also contemplating inviting Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, Nationalist Congress Party leader Sharad Pawar, Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal and Kerala CM P Vijayan. Agricultural scientists like MS Swaminathan, officials of the Union Agriculture ministry and ICAR (Indian Council for Agricultural Research) were also in the list of invitees. KCR will take a decision on inviting these noted personalities in a or two days.

KCR’s Rythu Bandhu scheme has drawn the attention of the BJP and the Congress too. The governments in states where BJP and the Congress are in power have sent their officials to study the scheme and examine if a similar model could be implemented back in their states. Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, and UP Chief Minister Adityanath Yogi’s top brass have sought information on the implementation of the scheme mainly the extension of the benefits to the farmers through cheques and mobilisation of funds at one go.

Sources said the representatives of the regional parties will attend in case the party heads skipped the programme. KCR is monitoring personally the arrangements being made for the launch of the first of its kind farmers’ welfare scheme on a grand scale and attract national attention.

The Chief Minister already instructed his cabinet colleagues and legislators to distribute cheques to the farmers by organising meetings in their respective constituencies on the launching day of the scheme. State Agriculture Department has been entrusted with the responsibility of overseeing the arrangements for the distribution of cheques to all beneficiaries.