Telangana: BJP, TRS Governments Neglecting Tenant Farmers, Says Congress Leader Uttam Kumar Reddy

Uttam Kumar said that the Central Govt gave a generalised reply and misleading information on the steps to include tenant farmers and sharecroppers in various schemes.

Hyderabad: Congress MP and former TPCC President N Uttam Kumar Reddy have accused both BJP Government at the Centre and the TRS government in Telangana of neglecting tenant farmers in the state.

In a release on Wednesday, Uttam Kumar Reddy said that a written reply by Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar to a question raised by him in the Lok Sabha has exposed the injustice being done to tenant farmers in the country, especially in Telangana. 

He said that the Centre gave a generalised reply and misleading information on the steps to include tenant farmers and sharecroppers in various schemes. He said that the Union Minister completely avoided answering the question on the non-inclusion of tenant farmers in the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) even in the states which provide cash support to landless tenant farmers such as Odisha and Andhra Pradesh.

"By simply saying that 'Landholding is the primary condition for eligibility for PM-KISAN, the Central government is declaring that it doesn’t care for millions of landless tenant farmers across India. Is the Minister declaring that millions of tenant farmers are not 'Kisan'? Don’t they deserve the same “Samman” as the land owners with pattas?" Uttam Kumar asked.

Congress leader Uttam said that there were 18 lakh tenant farmers, in Telangana cultivating around 20 per cent of agricultural land. However, tenant farmers have been facing discrimination. Instead of supporting them with a separate sub-target, they are included in the same group as Small and Marginal Farmer (SMFs). This is being done to cover up the fact that a majority of tenant farmers are being denied loans and kept out of priority sector lending programmes, he alleged.

"The Congress MP said that the Centre has claimed that there were 54,08,798 JLBs across the country, and a loan amount of Rs 1,12,772 crore was disbursed to them in the year 2021-22. With just 83,313 JLBs, Telangana stood 17th in the list of 36 states & UTs, and the amount disbursed to them was a mere Rs 148.76 crores," he said.