Telangana BJP president N Ramchander Rao on Wednesday said a lack of foresight from the state government led to the withering of crops of farmers due to the lack of irrigation facility and also electricity for agricultural pump sets.
Along with the party leaders, the BJP chief visited farms at Chinna Mandaram in Nalgonda district and interacted with the farmers. He also examined the water level in Nagarjuna Sagar Project in the district.
Rao said drought-like conditions prevailed in some areas and farmers are not receiving required electricity supply to save their crops. He felt the Congress government is a complete failure when it comes to the welfare of farmers.
The BJP leader said, “Even though it was known in advance that the El Niño conditions might arise, no advance preparations were made to protect agriculture by ensuring adequate water and electricity supply.”
He said the Congress government has not implemented the Prime Minister’s Fasal Bima Yojana in Telangana. If this scheme had been implemented, insurance protection would have been available to the farmers during such times of crop losses, he maintained.
Rao pointed out that cultivation across thousands of acres relied entirely on borewells in non-ayacut areas of Nalgonda. While the Congress government was claiming to have supplied electricity for 12 to 15 hours, farmers informed him that they were receiving electricity for a maximum of five hours a day.
He criticised Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi for promising at the Warangal ‘Rythu Declaration’ meeting to introduce an insurance scheme superior to the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, but not taking up any such measure after the party came to power in Telangana.
The previous BRS government, he said, sidelined the Fasal Bima scheme by not paying the premiums since 2018. “The Congress government is now continuing this same negligence, which is badly impacting the farmers.”
He noted that Hyderabad’s drinking water needs are met through the phases 1, 2, and 3 drinking water schemes from the Nagarjuna Sagar Project. The state, he said, must mount pressure on the Karnataka government to immediately release the water it stored in the upstream Almatti and Narayanpur reservoirs, and prevent a severe drinking water crisis in the city and other towns.
Both the BRS and Congress governments remained as spectators when the Karnataka government raised the height of the Almatti Dam by five meters in violation of Supreme Court orders, he said.
Ramachander Rao urged the Congress government to make public the facts about AP government’s diversion of Telangana’s allocated ‘net water’ in addition to floodwaters through the Veligonda project. The BJP would wage a struggle to safeguard Telangana’s share of river water, he said.
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