Picking on a theme he has often stressed in his bid to provide the BRS a national footprint, Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao on Saturday, 14 January, said that the progress achieved by the state’s agriculture sector had become a role model for the entire country.
In a message to the people on the eve of Sankranti, the festival that marks the commencement of the harvesting season, the chief minister said that Telangana was the only state which has been investing lakhs of crores of rupees on strengthening the agriculture sector.
He said that the government had spent more than ₹2.16 lakh crore on Rythu Bandhu, 24-hour free power supply, and construction of irrigation projects.
That stands as proof of the Telangana government’s commitment to farmers’ welfare, he said.
Increased acreage
The chief minister said that under Telangana’s action plan for farmers’ welfare and agricultural development, the cultivated area in the state has gone up to 2.4 crore acres.
At the time of the formation of Telangana, the total cultivated area was only 1.31 crore acres.
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Adopting the policies implemented by Telangana should spur similar development of the agriculture sector in the country, Chief Minister KCR said.
He said that agriculture, which is considered as a futile avocation by the erstwhile rulers, had become a fruitful occupation in Telangana.
It instilled confidence among farmers that relying on agriculture will bring light into their lives.
The farmers in the entire country should have the kind of confidence that the Telangana farmers have now., the chief minister said, reiterating that the country was in need of a new model in the way agriculture is done, that would lay a path for qualitative growth.
The pioneering #RythuBima a Brainchild of Hon’ble CM KCR Garu has been a huge help to Telangana Farmers’ families
So far, 95416 families have received ₹ 5 lakhs each under Rythu Bima
The total amount of assistance disbursed is ₹ 4770.80 Crores#FarmerFirst #KCR #Telangana https://t.co/H5PJzUhaqk pic.twitter.com/QoYsVSUB0T
— KTR (@KTRTRS) January 9, 2023
The farm focus
The Telangana chief minister has been attacking the BJP on the farm front for a while now.
At several rallies he has contended that the BJP gameplan was to allow corporates to step in and gobble up the lands of farmers by making agriculture prohibitively expensive.
“The first move that the Centre made was to try to install meters to agriculture pump sets, and discontinue welfare schemes arguing that they were freebies that would lead to the impoverishment of the economy,” said KCR at an October rally where he focused on farm issues.
Related: KCR gives sneak peek into national manifesto for farmers
“This is all being done as part of a grand conspiracy. The prime minister wants the corporates to take over the lands from farmers, begin contract farming, and hire farmers who sold their lands as coolies in their own lands,” he added.
Earlier, in September, he gave people a sneak peek into the national manifesto he was authoring for farmers when he said that power supply to the farm sector in the entire country would be free — as is the case in his state now — after the formation of a non-BJP government at the Centre in 2024.
Describing the announcement as good news for the farmers, KCR laid bare his plan to rally farmers all over the country with an agriculture-friendly manifesto ahead of the general elections in 2024 in pursuit of his Delhi ambitions.
