Farmers in dire straits post Note ban: Congress

Khammam: Farmers are worst hit, Congress Deputy Floor Leader in the Council Ponguleti Sudhakar Reddy said, highlighting the ill-effects of the demonetisation. Reddy, who met farmers at the Agriculture Market Yard here on Friday, said cultivators were reeling under huge losses inflicted on them by the policies of the Centre.

Centre’s move of demonetisation of high-value notes and non-availability of cash has led to economic anarchy in the country,” Reddy said, pointing to the Centre’s inability to handle the situation.

Neither the Prime Minister Narendra Modi nor his Cabinet colleagues were aware of the farm cycle, he said, while referring to the problems of farmers. At a time when the Kharif harvesting is about to conclude and Rabi to begin, what the farmers need was finances to procure seed, fertilisers etc., which the government failed to understand, Reddy said.

He said with traders not coming forward to purchase citing non availability of cash, cultivators are going for distress sale of their farm products like green gram, maize and others.

Referring to the case of a farmer Gunda Biksham Reddy of Beerole under Tirumalayapalem mandal, Reddy said this farmer had to sell his green gram produce at Rs 3,000 per quintal against the maximum support price of Rs 5,225 per quintal.

“Small and marginal farmers have been placed in a terrible situation,” he said, criticising the Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao for his failure to prevail over the Centre in getting adequate cash reserves from the Reserve Bank of India to bring normalcy in the State. Stating that demonetisation didn’t affect the big industrialists and corporate companies, he said that impact was only on small traders, farmers and daily wage workers.

PCC official spokesperson Katla Ranga Rao, Sk Fazal, Maddi Veera Reddy, Kalvakuntla Gopal, Thota Satyam, Chava Vinod and Rejerla Saidulu were among others present.