Naidu and drought are inseperable twins: Jagan

Anantapur: Accusing the Telugu Desam leader Nara Chandrababu Naidu of neglecting the woes of farmers while he ran the government, Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy on Monday said Naidu and Karuvu (drought) are “inseparable twins.”

The drought situation in AP changed during the three years of the YSRC rule and there are adequate rains and full storage of reservoirs as also tanks across the state, he said.

'Not even a single mandal has been declared drought-prone since 2019. The state is lush green and has received abundant rainfall under our governance. On the contrary, during the Chandrababu term of five years, as many as 1,623 mandals suffered drought situation," the chief minister recalled.

The CM released Rs 2096cr in the second tranche under the Rythu Bharosa Scheme for welfare of farmers in the state at Allagadda in Nandyal district. Under the Rythu Bharosa scheme, the government is providing Rs 13,500 to each farmer in three installments every year.

In May, 2022, the first installment of the current fiscal, Rs 7,500, was deposited in the bank accounts of the beneficiary farmers. In the second installment, it released the money on Monday. The third part, Rs 4,000, as the last installment will be released during the Sankranti season in January, 2023.

Addressing a huge gathering, the CM asserted his unwavering support to farmers and said, "I can proudly proclaim that there is no other state that is as pro-farmer as AP. Every year, financial assistance worth `13,500 crore is being provided to farmers by the YSRC government to ensure that they don't fall into any debt trap."

He said there was poor yield of food grains in the previous TD term. The yield was 154 lakh tonnes in the five-year span till 2019. “Today, the scenario is different. Over 167.24 lakh tonnes of food grains were produced in the past three years,” he claimed.

Referring to crop insurance, the CM observed that 44.28 lakh farmers have been provided with crop insurance valued at Rs 66,000cr while the previous TD government confined it to only 30.25 lakh farmers, who got Rs 3,411cr.

"Chandrababu Naidu cheated people in the name of interest-free loans to farmers and spent only Rs 685cr on them. Our government has already spent Rs1,282cr for farmers with zero interest," he said.

The CM claimed, “Not even a single paise of corruption could be noticed in the ongoing welfare schemes. Every welfare scheme has provision for direct transfer of money to beneficiaries, unlike the time of loot of public money in the past.”

The  chief minister responded positively to a representation from Allagadda MLA Nani and sanctioned Rs 95 crore for development works in the segment. A sum of Rs 56 crore has been sanctioned for the construction of roads, drains, footpaths and to streetlights for Allagadda town. Besides,Rs 8 crore has been given for the construction of a high level bridge from Sirivella to Rudravaram.