Agriculture Department will be playing a crucial role in the constitution of Farmers’ Coordination Committees in every revenue village, mandal, district and State level, as a first step to organise and unite farmers across the State to get a better deal for their toil and produce and turn agriculture into a profitable vocation.
These committees unlike Adarsha Rythu scheme of the Congress government in the combined State, which had persons who had nothing to do with agriculture, will be comprised with 15 experienced, resident and practical farmers of the village. These members will be selected transparently by farmers in the Gram Sabha.
‘No politics’
The committees will be formed without any political agenda and the groups will work on behalf of and for the welfare of farmers alone, asserted Agriculture Minister Pocharam Srinivas Reddy.
He was interacting with Agriculture Department officers and extension officers at the training programme organised for forming farmers’ coordination committees at the Prof. Jayashankar Telangana State Agriculture University here on Thursday. The committees were being formed for the successful implementation of several programmes to revive agriculture and remove the despair among the farmers.
Though Chief Minister K.Chandrasekhar Rao was expected to address the Agriculture Department officers at the valedictory he could not make it.
Mr. Srinivas Reddy explained how the officers could translate Chief Minister’s vision to give collective bargaining power to farmers in the coming years.
Farmers’ involvement
After providing nine hour supply, waiving loans, focusing on irrigation projects to provide water to one lakh acres in each constituency, Government now wanted to extend input assistance, create crop colonies to decide the crops and the extent of crops based on demand and supply and ensure farmers got remunerative price for their produce.
“For this farmers have to be united and involved in every decision. So farmers coordination committees will be formed from September 1 to 9. From September 10 to 14, training will be provided to the committee members on government’s initiatives so that they can help other farmers,” Mr. Srinivas Reddy said. The committees will also be explained about the land survey for cleaning and updating the land records in villages.
Land survey
All land owners after verification on the ground will be given pass books afresh with their land details, he said.
Authentic land records was important as government would give input assistance of ₹8,000 per acre for two crops in a year from 2018-19. The land survey and cleaning up of records will be taken up from September 15 to December 31. “In two to three years, if our plans fructify, farmers will salute our department,” he said.