Telangana's main opposition Congress on Saturday demanded a session of the state legislature immediately to discuss the issues pertaining to farmers and the land acquisition for projects.
The Congress Legislature Party demanded the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) government convene the session of both the houses of legislature to discuss the key issues.
Alleging that the TRS government is completely neglecting the farmers in the state, Leader of Opposition in the legislative council, Mohammed Ali Shabbir said despite the fact that farmers have lost four consecutive crops since 2014, the government has failed to take any measures to ensure that they recover from their losses in ongoing Kharif season.
"Farmers were not given total relief by waiving off total dues under Rs 1 lakh crore loan waiver scheme. As against the dues of nearly Rs 8,500 crore the state government cleared only Rs 2,020 crore. Consequently, banks are refusing to sanction fresh loans to farmers," he said.
Addressing a news conference along with two other leaders T. Jeevan Reddy and Ponguleti Sudhakar Reddy, Shabbir claimed that the state government has not utilised the Rs 800 crore sanctioned by the central government towards drought relief.
He said that the farmers were neither given input subsidy nor provided any financial assistance under state or central government schemes and accused the TRS government of deliberately sabotaging the agriculture sector.
Shabbir slammed the TRS government over the land acquisition for various projects, saying instead of implementing Land Acquisition Act, 2013, the government came out with a new order (GO No 123) to cheat framers. He said there was no provision in the GO for of rehabilitation and re-settlement of affected people.
The Congress leader said that the state government should not avoid convening assembly session. He pointed out that during previous Congress regimes, assembly session was held for 52 days in a year. However, the duration was just 25 days in 2014-15 while it was only 21 days in 2015-16. This year, the assembly session was confined to only 17 days, he added.
--IANS
ms/vd
