BRS asks how Congress achieved record paddy production without completing any project

T. Harish Rao. File
| Photo Credit: MOHD ARIF

HYDERABAD

The Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) has ridiculed the claims of Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy that it is the credit of the Congress Government to achieve the record production of paddy this Kharif season without completing any pending or new irrigation project since December last year.

Reacting to the comments of the Chief Minister made at the ‘Rythu Panduga’ event held at Mahabubnagar on Saturday, BRS senior leader and former minister T. Harish Rao said Mr. Revanth Reddy had left the farming community of the State highly disappointed by not making any announcement on implementing the ₹2 lakh crop loan waiver completely, payment of investment support under Rythu Bharosa of ₹15,000 per acre for Kharif and Rabi seasons put together.

There was no word on extending the Rythu Bharosa to tenant farmers and financial support to farmworkers, Mr. Harish Rao said and questioned Mr. Revanth Reddy’s claims of patent over Rythu Bima scheme too introduced by the previous BRS government. He sought to know from the Chief Minister how the paddy production that was only 68 lakh tonnes in 2014 had increased to 1.68 crore tonnes in 2023.

He stated that it was the hard work put in by the BRS government to complete several pending and new irrigation projects such as Kaleshwaram the area of cultivation had gone up from 1.31 crore acres in 2014-15 to 2.21 crore acres in 2023-24. It was the BRS government that had increased the ayacut under Kalwakurthy, Bhima, Nettempadu and Koilsagar projects from mere 27,000 acres to 6.5 lakh acres. He sought to know how long the Congress Government would bide time by speaking lies.

Except for shedding crocodile tears on Mahabubnagar what did Congress Government do for the district for the last one year, he asked and reminded the Chief Minister that it was he (CM) who had said last year that his government would complete the Palamuru-Rangareddy Lift Irrigation Scheme, whose head works were completed 90% already. No minister could take out some time to visit the Vattem pump house of PRLIS which was submerged earlier this year.

Mr. Harish Rao also challenged the Chief Minister to prove that former Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao owned a 1,000-acre farmhouse in Gajwel.