Niranjan Reddy attacks Congress over its claims on Rythu Bandhu

Hyderabad: Agriculture Minister S Niranjan Reddy on Wednesday said that the Telangana government was the only government in the country to deposit Rs 72,815 crore in the bank accounts of the farmers in 11 instalments.

Addressing a press conference here at Telangana Bhavan, Niranjan Reddy asked whether the farmers were looking like beggars to the Congress party? The minister condemned the comments of the Congress leaders in Kollapur public meeting. He said that the government schemes like RythuBandhu and Rythu Bhima schemes were hailed by international organizations as the best in the world whereas the Congress was saying that RythuBandhu is ‘bhiksha’. The Minister said that under the RythuBeema scheme so far 1,11,320 farmer families have received Rs 5,566 crore. There are no Telangana-style schemes anywhere in the Congress-ruled states, said the minister.

The Minister further said that since the formation of Telangana and till date the government had procured 722.92 lakh metric tonnes of food grains worth Rs.1.33 lakh crore. Apart from the food grains, other crops were procured with a value of Rs 11,439.06 crores. Government spent Rs 5,349 crores through Mission Kakatiya for rejuvenation of ponds which stabilized 15.05 lakh acres of Ayakattu with a capacity of 8.93 TMCs. The Minister said that so far 33.31 lakh farmers received loan waiver to the tune of Rs 16,144 crore. Niranjan Reddy said that the government had established 11 new colleges including five Agriculture and 1 Horticulture Colleges, four horticulture Polytechnics after formation of Telangana State.