KCR wants farm labour to be under NREGS

Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on Thursday demanded that the Centre link the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) with agriculture and bear 50% of expenses incurred by farmers towards farm labour.

Rao, popularly known as KCR, made the demand after inaugurating his much-publicised populist scheme Rythu Bandhu at Dharmarajupalle-Indiranagar in Huzurabad mandal of Karimnagar district.

He handed over the first cheque and new passbooks to B Sanjiva Reddy of Dharmarajupalem. The scheme was simultaneously launched by people’s representatives and district officials across the state.

The scheme, considered to be a game-changer in state politics in the run-up to the assembly elections in 2019, envisages payment of ₹8,000 per acre per year to each farmer in two spells of ₹4,000 each in kharif and rabi seasons.

It will benefit 5.8 million farmers owning 1.39 crore acres across the state. In all, the government has earmarked ₹12,000 crore for the scheme, official estimates said.

“The agriculture labour should be treated on par with all other manual labour that comes under employment guarantee scheme. Therefore, from this dais, we demand that the Centre link agriculture labour should also be linked to NREGS. Accordingly, the Centre should bear 50% of the wages to be paid to agriculture labourers. The remaining should be borne by the farmers,” said KCR, who also distributed newly-designed pattadar passbooks to the farmers.

Meanwhile, the Congress party alleged that the scheme smacked of a major scam. Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee spokesman Dasoju Sravan said the official statistics show a huge contradiction in actual number of farmers and cultivable area.

HYDERABAD: