Palla slams Bandi’s claim of 10,000 TS farmer suicides
Rythu Bandhu Samithi chairman and BRS MLC Palla Rajeshwar Reddy on Monday strongly refuted comments made by BJP state president Bandi Sanjay Kumar that almost 10,000 farmers had committed suicide in the last eight years while the TRS (now BRS) was in power as a result of debt, a lack of MSP, and procurement issues. Speaking to media along with MLA Guvvala Balaraju, MLCS M.s.prabhakar and V.gangadhar Goud at BRS Legislature Party (BRSLP) office here, Palla said that since 2014, the farmers’ suicides in Telangana came down by 400 per cent as per the Centre’s NCRD records.
He reminded that the Centre had stated in the Parliament that farmer suicides in Telangana had significantly decreased since the state’s formation in 2014.
With the implementation of pro-farmer policies by the BRS government, such as Rythu Bandhu, Rythu Bima, 25x7 free power to agriculture, among others, Telangana recorded zero farmer suicides due to debts or agri-related problems, and all farmer suicides being reported by the NCRB were on account of personal, family, health factors, he claimed.
Further, he stated that Telangana is the only state in the country to offer `5 lakh in compensation under Rythu Bima to the kin of farmers who die for any reason. “Even if a farmer only owns one gunta of land, his family will still be compensated with `5 lakh if the farmer dies for any reason. They used to only receive compensation in the past when farmers committed suicide.
However, our CM altered this policy to assist the kin of farmers regardless of the reason for their death,” he noted.
Palla also strongly refuted Bandi’s contention that only rich farmers were receiving Rythu Bandhu benefits, citing statistics to support his claim that 91 per cent of those receiving benefits were small and marginal farmers with an average landholding size of less than 10 acres.