Agri sector in distress, will study farmer suicide reasons: KTR

Hyderabad:The BRS party on Monday announced that a party study committee will examine suicides by farmers in the state with party working president K.T. Rama Rao saying that instances of farmers taking lives have reached ‘alarming proportions’ in Telangana.

Rao said that the committee, to be headed by former agriculture minister Singireddy Niranjan Reddy, will extensively tour the state in the next two weeks and examine the conditions farmers are in, and the crises that have gripped the agriculture sector after the Congress party took charge of the government.

The nine-member committee will submit its report to party president and former chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, he said.

The agriculture sector is undergoing an extremely difficult period with the Congress government failing to keep its promises to farmers. Not even 30 per cent of the farm loan waiver promise has been kept. While the BRS initiated Rythu Bandhu has been stopped, there was no sign of the promised `15,000 per acre per year under Rythu Bharosa, he said. These are among the reasons that are contributing to rising suicides by farmers, and the BRS will confront the government in the Assembly Budget session on the issue of farmers’ welfare,” Rao said.