The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : TDP to intensify stir on MSP for paddy

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Oct 17, 2007
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

TDP to intensify stir on MSP for paddy

Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD: Telugu Desam president N. Chandrababu Naidu on Tuesday said the party would carry ‘fight to a finish’ agitation till the State and Centre agreed to Rs. 1,000 a quintal Minimum Support Price for paddy. At a press conference, Mr. Naidu criticised Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar’s contention that one should not draw a comparison between wheat and paddy. “It shows that both Centre and State governments are not interested in coming to the rescue of the paddy growers.”

YSR faulted

He took exception to Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy’s justification on lower price for paddy saying it was the same in other States and charged him with not building enough pressure on the Centre to declare support price parity between wheat and paddy. “The Chief Minister and the Ministers, here were acting on behalf of the Centre and not in favour of the paddy growers here.”

He said it should not be difficult for the Centre as it was earning annual revenue of Rs. 2,70,000 crore. It was not just paddy but most of the commodities too were not fetching adequate returns to the farmers from tomato, cotton to sugarcane. “Whenever Congress ruled the State, farmers never got good price for their produce.” Yet the Union Ministers and Congress MPs from the State did nothing.

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