Hyderabad: A BJP delegation met Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy at the Secretariat and urged him to take steps for redressal of farmers’ grievances at paddy procurement centres, especially with regard to delays, and ensure payment of ₹ 500 additional bonus on the procurement price as was promised during the Assembly elections campaign. The BJP delegation said in its memorandum that unseasonal rains had damaged the harvest due to a lack of safe storage places.
“Farmers have been waiting at procurement centres for weeks to weigh their produce. After weighing, they have been waiting for lorries to carry the paddy to rice mills. The rice millers have been cheating farmers by collecting 4 kg more on each 40 kg bag by citing high moisture and depreciation of grain. Fed up with the role of officers and rice millers, the farmers in many places have staged a rasta roko and set fire to their produce,” the memorandum alleged.
The delegation, consisting of party MLAs A. Maheshwar Reddy, Ramarao Patel and Pydi Rakesh Reddy, urged the Chief Minister to direct the officials to procure the paddy under the ‘A’ category as the produce was damaged due to the government’s failure to lift the paddy in time.
The BJP leaders also urged Revanth Reddy to release ₹ 15,000 per acre to farmers and tenant farmers and ₹ 12,000 to farm labour as they are in dire need of the amount to raise crop in the Kharif season.
