Centre robbing farmers to pay corporates: T Harish Rao

SANGAREDDY: Finance and Health Minister T Harish Rao on Saturday said that the Centre’s policy of robbing the farmers to pay the corporates did not bode well for the farm sector. Harish was speaking at a meeting after the swearing-in ceremony of the market committee at Patancheru mandal. He said the farmers were suffering silently because of the lopsided policies of the Centre like imposing a 20 per cent duty on the export of broken rice out of the country when its production outstripped demand at home.

“The Centre had turned a deaf ear to the State’s entreaties to procure boiled rice from Telangana’s Rabi paddy. At the same time it imposes restrictions on exporting broken rice which is a product of making raw rice from Rabi paddy,” he said. The Minister said that the Centre’s ill-advised decisions have become a bane to the State’s farm sector which is leading to distress. He said that Telangana had turned into a rice bowl under the leadership of Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, but the Centre’s policies had become a dampener.

He said that paddy used to be grown on 72 lakh acres in Telangana in the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh but after the bifurcation of the State, it stood at 65 lakh acres in Telangana. The Minister laid the foundation stone for development projects of a value of Rs 4.50 crore in Ganeshgadda in Patancheru mandal. Also, a foundation stone was also laid for the construction of a road from Pashamylaram Industrial Road to Outer Ring Road at a cost of Rs 121 crore.

Harish said that once the construction of the new road is completed, the pressure on the traffic on the national highway will ease. Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao would visit Sangareddy district soon to inaugurate a medical college in Sangareddy and then lay the foundation stone for the construction of a super specialty hospital in Patancheru, he said. MLA Gudem Mahipal Reddy was also present on the occasion.