Congress pitches for Rythu Bandhu review

​Hyderabad: Deputy floor leader of Congress in Legislative Assembly T Jeevan Reddy on Saturday said that the government should review the Rythu Bandhu programme as it failed to help those who are engaged in cultivation.  Addressing the media, he said that the absentee landlords have been benefitted with the programme whereas those who are really cultivating the land have been deprived of the crop investment. 

He said that the government did not pay money to about 15 lakh agriculture plots stating there were disputes on their ownerships. It has selected 57 lakh land holdings for the scheme and so far paid money to 40 lakh holdings. This means that the scheme has been implemented by 55 per cent. 

Jeevan Reddy said that lot of errors have been noticed in the new pattadar passbooks. Even the land being purchased by him has been shown as inherited property. With so many errors the government may have to reprint the PPBs.  As the government ignored lakhs of tenant farmers in Rythu Bandhu scheme, they were deprived of investment. In fact they are the people who really till the soil. 

Apart from that the SCs have been denied the scheme as they did not have land.  Though the government promised that it would give three acres of land to each Dalith family, it has failed to implement it. With this most of SCs did not get benefit of the RBS.  He said that the proposed Rs 5 lakh insurance scheme for the farmers would go in the way of RBS if the mistakes are not corrected. He said that the government should bring all the cultivators into the scheme. 

Jeevan Reddy said that the farmers have been losing heavily due to the absence of minimum support price. While paddy needs `2,200 per quintal as MSP, it was given only `1,590 and the farmer has been losing `600 per quintal.