The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Farmers feel let down: Naidu

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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Farmers feel let down: Naidu

G. Narasimha Rao

“It’s discriminatory to grant MSP to wheat and deny the same to paddy”

To review allotments to SEZs if voted to power
Opposes chemical corridor that hits ryots, fishermen hard

Photo: C.V. Subrahmanyam

Smile please!: TDP president N. Chandrababu Naidu posing with a child during the ‘Mee Kosam’ programme in Payakaraopeta on Friday. —

PAYAKARAOPETA (Visakhapatnam dist.): “The Central Government has once again showed its discrimination by increasing the minimum support price (MSP) for paddy by only Rs.105 (to Rs. 850 per tonne) while the demand is for a minimum of Rs.1,000,” Telugu Desam president N. Chandrababu Naidu said here on Friday.

“The farmers as well as the agriculture sector are in deep trouble, and the TDP has been demanding the Centre to increase the MSP for paddy to Rs.1,000 for the last one year. We met the Prime Minister and requested the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) to hike the MSP to Rs.1,000. But the Centre has done great injustice to the paddy farmers and continued its discriminatory attitude towards them while granting Rs.1,000 MSP to wheat,” he said at a press conference held before he commenced his ‘Mee Kosam’ programme in the district.

‘Reveal guidelines’

“It is highly regrettable that the Centre has accepted the CACP recommendation in the case of wheat and not paddy , leaving the decision to the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council,” Mr. Naidu said, and criticised Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy for failing to secure the right price for paddy. He also demanded that the government reveal the guidelines on which it had recommended Rs. 850 as MSP for paddy. The TDP would organise protest programmes all over the State in a couple of days, he said.

On the Coastal Corridor and SEZs, he said the government was forcibly acquiring lands from farmers and people to sell the same at a higher price. New zamindars were being created in the shape of SEZs, he said, reiterating the party’s stand that it would review all allotments to the SEZs if it was voted back to power.

The TDP was not against industries but it wanted the investors to purchase land from the farmers instead of the government doing it. Instead of creating a coastal corridor, it should lay a six-lane road along the coast and allow industries to come up along the road. On the chemical corridor to be created near this mandal headquarters, Mr. Naidu said the farmers and fishermen would be displaced and the TDP would strongly oppose the proposal. “The government is trying to go ahead with bauxite mining in the Visakha Agency area and set up refineries in the plain area. This is not a democracy but dictatorship,” he said.

Kodela issue

The TDP chief said the party‘s Guntur district unit was supporting senior leader Kodela Siva Prasada Rao, who was staging a dharna demanding that the government lift the case of cheating against him. Local MLA Chengala Venkata Rao, Polit Bureau member Y. Ramakrishnudu, district president Bandaru Satyanarayana Murthy, city president Zaheer Ahmed were also present.

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