BONUS for former Harish takes Tummala to task for ‘barking’ remark

Former Minister and BRS MLA T Harish Rao on Thursday came down heavily on Minister for Agriculture Tummala Nageswara Rao for “likening farmers to dogs.” He claimed that the Minister, reacting to farmers’ demand for bonus to all varieties of grain, remarked that “some persons are barking like dogs.”
He was visiting a paddy procurement centre at Puduru under Kodimyalamandal in the district.
Addressing the farmers there, he said the Congress party ahead of the Assembly elections offered in writing on a bond paper bonus to paddy. But, now, the Congress leaders, after coming to power, has offered bonus to only fine variety of paddy. The government even released an order offering bonus to fine variety of paddy.
Out of the total area of 2.97 lakh acres under paddy, coarse variety of paddy is cultivated in 2.80 lakh acres in jagtial district. Fine variety of paddy is cultivated only in 1,7000 acres for using as food grains by the farmers.
Quoting a farmer Lakshma Reddy as saying, fine variety of paddy is being purchased in the open market at a price between  Rs 2,800 to Rs 3,000 a quintal, he said.  Where is the need for the government to give bonus to the fine variety of paddy, he asked.   These farmers would never sell superfine variety of paddy to the government to get Rs 500 bonus per quintal.  The farmer Lakshma Reddy called it “cheating”, Harish Rao said.
The yield of coarse variety of paddy is between 25 and 30 quintals an acre, while fine variety production is limited to 10 to 15 quintals an acre, he said.
The yield is less by at least 10 quintals, whereas the pest attacks, investment and duration of the crop is more in case of coarse variety of paddy, he said. When a majority of the farmers produce only coarse variety of paddy, the government is offering bonus to fine variety of paddy only. Itt amounted to cheating the farmers, he said.