Hyderabad: Chief minister A Revanth Reddy said an amount of Rs 22,606 crore was disbursed to ineligible individuals and farmers during the previous BRS govt under Rythu Bandhu scheme.
He said those privileged to receive the amounts claimed ownership of hills and hillocks, claimed amounts on podu land, land where stone crusher units were located, showed layouts as agricultural land, and created pattadar passbooks on land already given for roads and highway expansions.
“This was the favoritism that the BRS govt had shown to some people,” Revanth said during the assembly session on Saturday. He mentioned that out of the total amount of Rs 72,716 crore disbursed under Rythu Bandhu, Rs 22,606 crore had gone into the kitty of ineligible people. Even those who received Rythu Bandhu at the rate of Rs 10,000 per year per acre for their farmland found it hardly helpful. The CM said as the money was disbursed over five years, the amounts the farmers received were hardly of any help to them.
“If eligible people got Rythu Bandhu, shouldn’t the Rythu Bharosa that the Congress govt has planned be limited to farmers who have small land holdings?” he said. Revanth said there was a time when there were grape gardens and vegetable growing around Hyderabad, but now even 50 km around the city, there was hardly any cultivation or agricultural activity taking place.
The chief minister’s intervention came after BJP MLA from Adiabad, Payal Shankar, urged the govt to consider giving Rythu Bharosa to all farmers irrespective of their land holdings. “My assurance is that all eligible farmers will get the financial assistance from the govt,” the CM said.
On the loan waiver scheme, Revanth said the Congress govt implemented its poll promise. An amount of Rs 17,869 crore was waived off for farmers who took loans up to Rs 2 lakh. This amount pertained to bank loans taken by farmers in the previous year, 2022-23. He said the former BRS govt waived off only Rs 16,143 crore in loans. “As the amounts released by the BRS govt were spread over five years, the farmers hardly benefited as most of the amounts were enough to repay the accrued interest,” he said.
Though the BRS govt claimed it did a lot for farmers, he said that 2,888 farmers died by suicide during the period 2014-2016 in Telangana. This information was given in Parliament and included in the National Crime Records Bureau data, he said. In comparison, he said during the same period, there were 915 farmer suicides in Andhra Pradesh, and in Uttar Pradesh, which has a larger population, there were onky 277 farmer suicides.
“Rythu Bandhu was just about giving away money, instead of understanding the problems of farmers and solving them,” he said.
