Telangana: Long wait for jowar, paddy farmers as Congress government delays payments

With Vanakalam season fast approaching, farmers say they need the money to buy seeds and fertilizers besides preparing the land for sowing

Sangareddy: Over 6,000 jowar farmers in the district continue to wait to be paid by the State government even after selling their produce over two weeks ago.

The government had opened 22 procurement centres in the last week of April this year. They had procured over 17,000 metric tonnes of jowar from over 6,800 farmers so far. With the District Cooperative and Marketing Society, IKP, PACS and FPO opening 22 procurement centres, the procurement has been nearing completion.

However, contradicting the statements of Agriculture Minister Thummala Nageshwar Rao, who promised to deposit the amount within 48 hours after procuring produce from farmers, the payments have been delayed for more than 20 days in Sangareddy district.

With Vanakalam season fast approaching, farmers said they needed the money to buy seeds and fertilizers besides preparing the land for sowing by tilling it. Due to lack of funds, they could not buy anything so far, they said, also pointing out that with the IMD predicting that the monsoon would touch Telangana in first week of June, time was running out fast for them. Not only for jowar farmers, payments for paddy farmers were also being delayed for more than a fortnight.

Speaking to ‘Telangana Today’, a farmer, Mallesh, said they were already finding it difficult to mobilise funds as the State government had not paid them the Rythu Barosa input assistance during the last two seasons besides dashing their hopes of getting crop loan waiver benefits. He urged the government to ensure that the jowar and paddy payments were deposited in the farmers’ accounts as early as possible.