Andhra Pradesh - Eluru   

Crop holiday: ryots serve ultimatum on government

ELURU: Peasant representatives, who met here on Saturday under the banner of the Andhra Pradesh Rytanga Samakhya, served an ultimatum on the UPA government to enforce crop holiday in the Krishna-Godavari delta regions with a paddy area of 24 lakh acres if the latter failed to make an announcement in favour of their charter of demands before June 20.

The charter of demands included announcement of a special package by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the lines of the one offered to the farmers in Vidarbha area to address the distress conditions in the agricultural sector, deputation of a Central team to the coastal villages enabling an outlet to the crisis-hit paddy growers and fixation of the price of paddy per quintal at Rs 1,500.

A host of paddy growers told the leaders of the Rytanga Samakhya that the cultivation cost had shot up to Rs 1,000 per quintal as against the selling price of Rs 800-900. They expressed their helplessness to continue with cultivation by suffering losses by more than Rs 100 per quintal. The farmers in Achanta of West Godavari district and those in the Konaseema region of East Godavari district appeared to have shown the way for their counterparts. Speaking at the meeting, Maganti Sitarama Swamy, honorary president of the Samakhya declared that he too would enforce a crop holiday in his 10 acres in his upland village of West Godavari district. He said the crisis in the kharif also would deepen further as the space crunch in godowns continued to loom large over the paddy growers.

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Crop holiday: ryots serve ultimatum on government

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