Will stay in Delhi till Piyush Goyal yields: Telangana Minister

HYDERABAD: The TRS delegation led by Agriculture Minister Singireddy Niranjan Reddy has decided to stay put in Delhi for some more days, even as the deadline fixed by Union Food and Public Distribution Minister Piyush Goyal ended on Thursday, December 23, 2021. “We came to Delhi with sweaters and are taking all precautions. We will wait for some days,” Niranjan Reddy told reporters in Delhi.

Accusing the Narendra Modi government of being adamant and not responding to the problems of the farmers, Niranjan Reddy said: “We are here neither to express our love towards the BJP leaders nor to hand over love letters to them. We are here on behalf of the farmers. The Centre should spell out whether it will procure the entire Kharif rice produced in Telangana or not,” he said.

The Minister said that since the Union government has decided not to procure parboiled rice from the State, the Telangana government advised farmers not to raise paddy in Rabi. “The farmers are following our advice. But we have asked Piyush Goyal to give an assurance in writing that the entire raw rice produced in Kharif season would be procured by the FCI. Goyal sought two days to respond to our demand. The two days have ended and we are still waiting,” Niranjan Reddy said.

He said that several countries were spending 25 per cent of their budgets towards agriculture subsides. “But in our country, subsides given for seeds, fertilisers and others account for only four per cent of the Union Budget,” he lamented.

Niranjan Reddy demanded that the Centre to implement the recommendations of MS Swaminathan on minimum support price (MSP). “At present, MSP is fixed for only 23 crops, whereas farmers are cultivating 57 types of crops in the country. Bring an Act for MSP,” he demanded. 

He added that if the MSP was implemented, the Centre would have to spend `2.28 lakh-crore for farmers, which would be merely 8 per cent of the Union Budget. The Centre should also strengthen agriculture sector along with the industries, he demanded.