Amaravati: Minister for Civil Supplies Kodali Venkateswararao (Nani) on Sunday flayed TDP Chief Chandrababu Naidu for making baseless allegations on clearing bills towards crop procurement and clarified that the State government shall clear all the pending arrears towards paddy procurement by the end of July.
Speaking to the media, the Minister stated that farmers were ignored during the reign of Chandrababu, where an average of 55 lakh metric tonnes of paddy was purchased during his five year rule, the current government had procured an average of 83 lakh metric tonnes per annum. Drawing comparison with the previous government, he said that Chandrababu paid an average of only Rs 8,500 crore a year to farmers for crop procurement, but the YSRC government had paid a total of Rs 32,000 crore, at a rate of Rs 16,000 crore annually which is almost double.
Kodali Nani said that the Centre owes Rs 5,056 crore to the state civil supplies department, for supplying the surplus crops to the Centre through Civil Supplies Corporation. He said that the government was making every effort to get those pending bills, where the Centre had assured to release Rs 1,600 crore on July 25. Similarly, another Rs 1,600 crore from NABARD is expected to get credited in a couple of days, said the Minister and asserted that the government will pay the farmers, soon after getting the funds. So far, the government has paid Rs 3400 crore and Rs 3393 crore are yet to be paid. With directions from the Chief Minister, the government is paying within 21 days of crop procurement and according to it only Rs 1204 crore is yet to be paid.
The Minister slammed the opposition for making false propaganda against the government and said that Naidu has no moral right to speak on farmers issues, as the entire farmer fraternity were betrayed by Chandrababu during his rule.
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