Congress stages protest, demand justice to farmers

Mahbubnagar: Demanding resolution of various problems faced by the farmers, the Congress workers and leaders staged protests at all district Collectorates on Monday.

In Mahabubnagar, the Congress leaders led by TTPCC vice president Mallu Ravi, Obedulla Kotawal, DCC president and Devarkadra constituency in charged and TPCC secretary G Madhusudhan Reddy, along with other leaders took out a rally from Congress party office to old district Collectorate and staged a protest.

Addressing the media, at the district collectorate, the Congress leaders said that the TRS government has miserably failed to implement its poll promises. "During the polls, Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao had promised to waive off farmers' loans up to Rs 1 lakh, but till date not a single paisa is waived off and the bankers are pressurising the farmers to pay the agricultural loans," Mallu Ravi said. "We are demanding the government to immediately waive off the farmers' loans in one go and do justice to the farming community who are in heavy debts," he said.

The leaders also demanded that the State government immediately issue pattas to the farmers who are making a livelihood by tilling the podu lands. They said that government should identify the real beneficiaries of the podu land and issue pattas to all the eligible tribal farmers.

They alleged that the state government's Dharani portal, for land records is causing lot of problems to the farmers.

"The Dharani portal brought up by the State government for digitisation of agricultural lands has miserably failed as the portal has many lacunas. "Many farmers are complaining of disappearance of their land records in the portal without their notice and despite many requests and representations to the concerned authorities, the land records are not been corrected or restored, because of this the farmers have lost all their hopes on the Dharani portal and the Congress party on behalf of the farmers is fighting to withdraw the Dharani portal," TPCC secretary Madhusudhan Reddy said.

If Congresss party comes to power, our focus will be to issue pattas to the podu lands and we will cancel the Dharani portal and reinstate the confidence of the farmers by bringing a much better, robust and transparent system," said Madhusudhan Reddy.

Later the Congress leaders gave a representation to the district Collector S Venkat Rao and urged him to immediately take note of the problems faced by the farming community in the Palamuru region and resolve them immediately.

The Congress leaders also reiterated that if the Congress party comes to power in the next elections, it will waive off the agriculture loans of farmers upto Rs. 2 lakhs at one go.

Similar protests were also witnessed in Gadwal led by AICC member and former Alampur MLA Sampath Kumar; in Wanaparthy district, the protest was headed by former minister Chinna Reddy; the congress ranks staged protests at their respective colelctorates in Nagarkurnool and Narayanpet districts also.