The Left parties have demanded that the Government convene a meeting of all political parties to evolve mechanism for selecting the members for the proposed farmers’ coordination committees.
The Left parties, including the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the CPI, termed as undemocratic the government’s decision to nominate members to the farmers panels that would play a crucial role in the finalisation of land related issues. The government should refrain from its unilateral moves and call for an all party meeting in this regard, the Left parties said.
Unilateral decision
CPI (M) State secretary Tammineni Veerabhadram said the move to nominate members to the farmers’ committees was giving rise to suspicion as it comes in the backdrop of the government’s announcement on providing ₹4,000 an acre input assistance to farmers from the next crop season.
Rather than conducting elections on the lines of water users associations and school committees, the decision to nominate ruling TRS representatives to the committees would give scope for large scale irregularities in the selection of beneficiaries denying the benefit to genuine farmers.
The government already drew flak from different sections for the alleged irregularities in the irrigation projects, Mission Kakatiya and other works. He found fault with the government in its decision to go ahead with land survey at a time when 11 lakh applications received for regularisation of sada bainamas issued to farmers were pending.
Tenant farmers
“Land survey taken up without addressing the applications received from farmers will remain incomplete,” he said adding that the Government should also give identity cards to tenant farmers enabling them to obtain institutional financial assistance.
The Left parties wanted the Government to take up land survey manually as satellite aided surveys like Bhu Bharati launched on pilot basis in Nizamabad district in the past failed to yield the desired results. Vast stretches of lands continued to be illegally occupied by the influential people over the past few decades depriving genuine beneficiaries of their rights.