Society will progress only if farmers are happy, says Naidu

The society will march forward on a progressive path only if farmers are happy, observed Nara Chandrababu Naidu, former chief minister and TDP president, on Thursday.

In a face-to-face programme with farmers and farming experts at Kalyana Durgam of Anantapur district as part of his Praja Vedika, Chandrababu Naidu felt that Chief Minister, Jagan Mohan Reddy, who never visited any agricultural fields, knows about the problems of the farmers. Jagan did great injustice to the State by neglecting the Polavaram project, he added.

Giving a call that Jagan should be out if the farmers need to survive, the former chief minister said that the farming sector in the State is facing trouble. Observing that the country is totally dependent on agriculture, he said the whole nation is aware of the problems to be faced if the farmers are in crisis.

Anantapur district is always a drought-prone area, Chandrababu recalled the attachment of the TDP with Anantapur district. “The late NT Rama Rao came to the rescue of this district with the Handri-Neeva project while the TDP government between 2014 and 2019 had spent Rs 4,200 cr in this district alone on irrigation,” he said.

Anantapur has very fertile lands, he said, adding that this year the ground-nut crop got totally damaged due to natural calamity. When the TDP was in power input subsidy and crop insurance were given to the farmers and the TDP government worked with a commitment to see to it that Rayalaseema is developed as a horticultural hub, Chandrababu Naidu said.

“I am organising this programme only with the sole aim that the farmers should progress well. Not even a single farmer in the State is happy and the State is in third position in the country in farmers suicides,” he lamented. Stating that the Chief Minister has not held even a single review meeting on the farmers’ issues, he said and stated that the TDP during its regime has achieved 11 per cent growth rate on farming.

Promising to resolve the local and non-local issues in the academic sector once the TDP is into power again, Naidu said that supplying irrigation water is the only solution to overcome the drought problem permanently. “If the Ganga-Kaveri are interlinked the drought issue across the country will be solved,” Chandrababu said.

Problems should be resolved with a vision and technical knowledge, he felt that interlinking of rivers is not at all a major issue. Water is a necessity for all, including farmers, Naidu said and added that power also can be generated with water.