KCR announces new corporation for welfare of farmers

Hyderabad: Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao on Thursday announced that a new corporation, Telangana State Farmers’ Coordination Committee Corporation, will be set up which will be dedicated to dissemination of knowledge related to government initiatives and schemes for the welfare of Telangana farmers and the State’s agriculture sector.

The corporation will operate on the lines of a non-profit organization and the funds generated for the body will be used only for fulfilling the corporation’s aims and objectives, the Chief Minister said. Chandrasekhar Rao also said that district level farmers coordination committees and the State level committee will be set up soon on the lines of the village and mandal level committees.

All farmers’ coordination committees will have at least 51 per cent of their membership drawn from members of backward communities and women, he said. The duties and responsibilities of the committees, the Chief Minster said, will include their active involvement at all stages of agriculture operations in the State, right from sowing of seeds to selling the produce at Minimum Support Prices.

These decisions were announced by the Chief Minister at a review he chaired at Pragati Bhavan on preparations for the February 25 and 26 farmers’



coordination committee regional conferences in Hyderabad and Karimangar respectively. The Chief Minister instructed Ministers, legislators, zilla parishad chairpersons and members of the mandal farmers’ coordination committees to attend the regional conferences.

The Chief Minister said facilities such as platforms where farmers can organize meetings will be constructed at the rate of one such facility for every 5,000 acre of farm land. In all, 2,630 such platforms will be built, he said, and urged the farmers coordination committees to take the lead on this front. He also instructed all the district collectors to identify land for their construction and identify the required land and purchase it if government land was not available. He also said land donations can be sought for creating this infrastructure.

The review meeting was attended by Deputy Chief Minister Kadiam Srihari, Agriculture Minister Pocharam Srinivas Reddy, Finance Minister Etela Rajender, Endowments Minister A Indrakaran Reddy, Chief Advisor Rajiv Sharma, Government Whip Palla Rajeshwar Reddy, Mission Bhagiratha Vice-Chairman Vemula Prashanth Reddy, MPs B Vinod Kumar, Gutha Sukhender Reddy, Balka Suman, Advocate General Prakash Reddy, Principal Secretary S Narsing Rao, Agriculture Commissioner Jagan Mohan Rao and others.