KCR bats for farm sector as he supports lockdown extension

Hyderabad: Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao while pleading for extension of lockdown by another two weeks has expressed his concern over the negative impact of lockdown on economy and crisis being faced by the farm sector.

During the video conference with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Chief Minister pitched in for some relaxation regarding functioning of food processing units.

He felt that rice mills, oil mills and other agriculture-based industries should be allowed to re-open so that the agriculture sector can be saved and it would also help in ensuring that there was no shortage of essential commodities.

This, he said, was more important since Telangana was agriculture-based economy.

The Chief Minister said that to protect farmers during the crisis time Rs 25,000-crore bank guarantee for the procurement of paddy and establishment of 7,000 procurement centres in the villages would go a long way in helping the farm sector.

He appealed to the Prime Minister to allow use of FCI godowns in States to store procured paddy and prepare an action plan to safeguard farmers interests.

He was also of the opinion that linking agriculture with the employment guarantee scheme -- MNREGA should continue for at least two months. He requested Modi to bring a policy by which farmers would pay half the wages for labourers and other half could be met from MNREGA funds.

To ease economic burden, KCR urged Modi to increase the FRBM (Fiscal Responsibility and Budgetary Management) limit to 5 per cent from the existing 3 per cent, besides taking steps to postpone repayment of interest on States' debts for six months.

The Centre had relaxed the limit to 3.5 per cent of GSDP for FY20, but States now want higher relaxation in the limit for FY21.

The CM proposed that the RBI should implement quantitative easing policy which is also called 'helicopter money'. This will facilitate the States and financial institutions to accrue funds.

"We can come out the financial crisis. Release 5 per cent of funds from the GDP through Quantitative easing Policy," he suggested.