Telangana Congress ridicules Agricultural Leadership Award-2017, conferred to Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao.
K Chandrasekhar Rao was selected for the Agriculture Leadership Award 2017 of the Indian Council of Food and Agriculture. He was chosen for the award a committee headed by agriculture scientist MS Swaminathan.
Doubting the credibility of ICFA, Dasoju Sravan, Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee, chief spokesperson, on Sunday, said that ICFA, the awarding agency had tainted the image of Agriculture Scientist M S Swaminathan.
He alleged that ICFA granted award to KCR to save its business interests in the state.
“ICFA appears to be a dubious private organization, which seems to be acting like a broker of global seed companies and appears to be indulging in lobbying with various governments to protect the business interests of seed companies," he was quoted telling The Hans India.
Coming down heavily on KCR, Sravan asked the chief minister to introspect if he actually deserves the award.
“Over 3,500 farmers committed suicide during TRS regime and not a single family got the compensation of Rs 6 lakh as per GO 421. Lakhs of farmers lost three consecutive crops due to the negligence of the State Government and adverse weather conditions,” he said, The Hindu reported.
He said that the KCR government failed to make proper estimates crop losses due to natural calamity and was even irresponsible to seek the appropriate support from Government of India.
Sravan said that the current KCR led government did not bring a smile to any farmer and enforced several anti-farmer policies including forcible land acquisition. “It is highly disgraceful that such a person is being named for an Agriculture Award," The Hans India reported.
He recalled that chilli farmers of Khammam who protested after they could not get proper remuneration were implicated in false cases and farmers who protested against poor power supply were brutally lathi-charged, Sravan said.
He further said that the KCR led TRS government did not implement the crop loan waiver scheme in a proper manner.
Farmers were hooked to their debts for over three years due to the improper loan waiver. The deliberate delays in releasing the instalment further pushed the farmers into more debts due to accumulation of interest, he said.
It must be noted that Telangana witnessed many farmer suicides over failure of crops. The National Crime Record Bureau revealed that 1,358 farmers committed suicide in Telangana in 2015.
The recent data by NCRB showed that followed by Maharashtra and Karnataka, Telangana fared worst with as many as 1,400 deaths.