Hullabaloo over, no action on farmers’ committees

HYDERABAD:  The state government, after the initial hullabaloo over the much-hyped Rythu Samanvaya Samithis (Farmer Coordination Committees), has failed to take further steps in the last three months and has not even constituted the state-level committee. The village and mandal level committees too remain nominal without doing any active work.

“After the formation of village and mandal Rythu Samanvaya Samithis, there is no further direction from the  government on constituting the state-level committee. We are still awaiting further directions,” official sources in the agriculture department have said.There was a talk two months back that Parliament member Gutta Sukhender Reddy would be made chairman of the state-level committee. But, even after four months after initiating the whole process, the state kept further proceedings pending. “We do not know when the state-level committee will be formed,” the sources said. The Rashtriya Rythu Samanvaya Samithi has to be constituted with 42 members at the state level. A coordinator will be nominated by the government to each committee from village to state levels.

According to sources, the state-level committee will come into existence before the next Kharif season when the  government will pay `4,000 per acre as input subsidy to farmers. By then the next general election will be hardly one year away and even if Sukhender Reddy resigns as MP, the Election Commission may not conduct a byelection for the Nalgonda Lok Sabha seat. Thus, the ruling TRS could evade facing a byelection for the Nalgonda seat which was originally held by the Congress.