The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : YSR misled House: Naidu

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Wednesday, Nov 21, 2007
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

YSR misled House: Naidu

Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD: Leader of the Opposition N. Chandrababu Naidu on Tuesday charged Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy with misleading the Assembly and the farmers on the issue of Minimum Support Price (MSP) for paddy.

At a press conference, Mr. Naidu said Dr. Reddy misled the House saying the MSP announced by the Centre on wheat would come into force next year while for paddy it would be from this year.

In contrast, the Centre clarified in the Rajya Sabha that the MSP for wheat and paddy would be effective from this year.

He said Dr. Reddy kept up his reputation of showing scant regard to the House by “uttering falsehood” and leaving for his Pulivendula constituency treating the Assembly as a mere formality.

It reflected his interest in agriculture and his failure in getting Rs.1,000 a quintal MSP for paddy.

The Government had also been claiming that it had raised the irrigation ayacut by 11 lakh acres while the Bureau of Economics and Statistics figures show that the crop area has come down from 42 lakh acres in 2000-01 to 39 lakh acres in 2006-07.

And this was again despite copious rain during the last three years.

He said another paper placed in the Parliament recently spoke of how the cost of raising paddy has gone up to Rs. 23, 965 per hectare while the income was Rs. 19,608.

It was not just paddy, farmers were not getting remunerative price for 13 other major crops including cotton, groundnut and maize and the party had suggested enhancing MSP for these too.

Since the Government was not playing pro-active role, the party had no other option but to go on an agitational path and call for a bandh on Wednesday.

He justified the bandh despite High Court order against encouraging it.

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