KCR bitten by bamboo farming bug, prods leaders to follow suit

Hyderabad: The BRS supremo K Chandrashekar Rao is busy bamboo farming these days. He is said to be advising the leaders who meet him to go in for profitable bamboo farming, which would give big returns.

According to sources, the BRS chief has decided to use the majority of this farmhouse for bamboo cultivation. In the 120-odd acres of KCR’s farmhouse, he is said to have decided to have bamboo cultivation on about 100 acres and the rest for food products like rice and others.

Being a farmer, KCR has been meeting party leaders in small groups frequently, and the regular talk other than politics was on farming. “He has been enquiring about the present political situation in the constituencies. When we said people want KCR to come out, he says that is what I am waiting for. People should call us, and when they are in need, I will come out,” said a BRS leader who had recently met the party chief.

KCR believes that bamboo farming will be a profitable business. He has brought bamboo seeds from Madhya Pradesh. The bamboo yield will be coming after five years and then every subsequent year. At least 200 saplings can be sown in one-acre fields, and the expenditure is likely to be around Rs 15,000 to Rs 20,000 per acre. There is no loss in the bamboo farming, and it could give an income of Rs 2 lakh per acre in the fifth year, and later on the income increases every year. The best thing is no expenditure, not much water needed, the contractors who purchase the bamboo take up the cutting, and the crop can be solved only when it is profitable. In the past, KCR was in the news for capsicum farming when he said that he could get Rs 10 crore income through this in his farmhouse.

The BRS leaders said that their party chief would be coming out after the Sankranti and would revamp the organisation by appointing party committees.