Although it is debatable if KCR is serious about taking BRS beyond Telangana, especially after making much noise but not contesting a single seat in the recently held Karnataka elections, it is time to uncover the truth behind his claims of doing the most for farmers.
Telangana Chief Minister Kalvakuntla Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) is campaigning in Maharashtra on behalf of his newly renamed Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS) with the slogan ‘Ab ki baar Kisan sarkar’. He claims that no other government – central or state – has done more for farmers than his party’s government in Telangana through its twin schemes of Rythu Bandhu and Rythu Bima, coupled with free electricity to agricultural pumpsets.
Although it is debatable if KCR is serious about taking BRS beyond Telangana, especially after making much noise but not contesting a single seat in the recently held Karnataka elections, it is time to uncover the truth behind his claims of doing the most for farmers.
KCR launched the Rythu Bandhu scheme just before the 2018 Assembly elections.
According to the scheme, every farmer gets Rs 4,000 per acre as input subsidy for two crops yearly. KCR later increased the amount to Rs 5,000 per acre per season in December 2021. Raythu Bima is a group life insurance scheme that provides coverage of five lakh rupees in case of a farmer’s death. The state government provides free electricity to agricultural pumpsets. Of these three schemes, the free electricity to agricultural pumpsets was pre-existing state government scheme. Many state governments across India provide free electricity for agriculture, but the BRS government claims to do better by delivering 24X7 uninterrupted supply.
According to the recent budget numbers, Rythu Bandhu costs Rs 15,000 crore and Rythu Bima Rs 1,600 crore.
The Telangana government claims to have spent Rs 10,500 crore last year to provide free power to the 26.96 lakh agricultural pumpsets in the state. Assuming the state government paid the subsidy amount to the electricity DISCOMs, the total benefit to the 70 lakh farmers through these three schemes comes to around Rs 27,100 crore annually. Since 10,000 per acre of Rythu Bandhu costs Rs 15,000 crore to the government, the total expenditure of Rs 27,100 crore, when apportioned per acre, comes to Rs 18,000.
In contrast to what the BRS government claims to be doing for the state’s farmers, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Modi government at the Centre has taken a comprehensive, holistic approach towards agriculture and farmers. Going by Union Tourism Minister Kishan Reddy’s recent presentation regarding the funds that the Center collects from Telangana as taxes and the sums it spends in Telangana for welfare and development of the state, it is crystal clear that Telangana farmers have benefited more from the Center’s support than from the state government schemes.
From fertiliser subsidies to the timely procurement of farmers’ produce, the Modi-led central government supports Telangana’s farmers throughout the crop life cycle. The fertiliser subsidy alone outmatches the state government’s expenditure per acre on agriculture. The central government subsidises Rs 2,236 per bag of urea and Rs 2,422 per bag of DAP.
Usually, each farmer requires two bags of urea and two bags of DAP per acre. Urea and DAP alone account for a benefit of Rs 18,632 per acre.
On top of the Rs 18,632 fertiliser subsidy per acre, the central government also deposits Rs 6,000 per year under the Kisan Samman Nidhi scheme to each marginal and small farmer in the state.
The central government has also increased the Minimum Support Price (MSP) for crops produced by farmers in Telangana. For example, the central government increased the price of paddy by 61% over the last nine years – from Rs 1,360 to Rs 2,183. Similarly, medium staple cotton prices were raised by 77% – from Rs 3,750 to Rs 6,620. The Center spent Rs 26,638 crores on paddy procurement in 2021, nearly eight times of Rs 3,404 crores it expended in 2014. While the Central government receives paddy in return, the controversy and noise the BRS party made around boiled rice procurement lay bare the importance of procurement for farmers.
Another benefit the Modi government introduced for farmers was the Fasal Bima Yojana – a scheme to provide insurance for farm produce. For the four years –2016-17 to 2019-20, the Central government contributed Rs 1,182 crore to ensure that farmers in the state do not lose because of crop loss.
Unfortunately, in KCR’s ‘Telangana Model’, crop insurance had no place, and farmers continued to suffer year after year since 2020, when he discontinued the scheme without providing an alternative to the farmers. The same farmers in Telangana who used to receive insurance benefits as their right, now have to plead with KCR and depend on his benevolence for compensation from the State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF), into which the central government contributes 75% of the funds.
The numbers above show that the BJP government at the Center is far more farmer-friendly than the “minimum governance, maximum politics” BRS government in the state. It’s time the BRS govt is replaced by the true Kisan Sarkar of BJP in Telangana by its voters.
(The author is BJP TS spokesperson)
